All Things Worth Keeping
by the-dandiest-of-lions
Summary: When Indigo Carter moved to the Citadel to study music at Auxua School of the Arts, she thought she knew what to expect. However, she certainly never imagined she'd be making the acquaintance of a failed hitman trying to ride out the tidal wave of his own past. Life is such a messy ordeal that when the Reapers come, they almost feel like a welcome cleaning service.
1. Green Coffee : Redline Tango

**HOT CHOCOLATE AND THESSIAN BLEND / REDLINE TANGO – JOHN MACKEY**

 **A/N: CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION W/ REVISIONS AND UPCOMING CHAPTER FIVE.**

* * *

Dusk had well and truly fallen. Purple-tinted shadows clung like fine gossamer to the dips and hollows etched in the knotty trees, pooling ink-dark at their roots. Thin fingers of light from the yawning moon broke through the canopy of leaves and tangled vines to the forest floor, but it was the ghostly blue-white glow of the wisps hiding in the gathered darkness that guided the two travellers to the edge of the clearing.

The turian nightblade's careful footfalls were but a whisper above the _tkilklin_ cicadas' fluting trills and the muted rustle of leaves in the slight breeze. She carried silence with her; laid it close against her keel under her brigandine cuirass. Her asari companion struck a much more conspicuous figure in an intricate suit of armour, her every movement accompanied by the clink of chain mail. Spots of light danced from the wicked edge of her war axe as she rolled her shoulders.

Soon, they'd reach the ruins of Ka'tar. They'd carve a bloody swathe through the eldritch creatures skittering along the walls of the catacombs and lay claim to the treasures within. Gold, gems, spellscrolls, weapons… spirits of old only knew what riches were hidden inside.

They just had to—

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: hold on. i have to squeeze the lemon_

 _Shayila2091: What?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: it means pee_

 _Shayila2091: The **lemon?**_ _Goddess, you're so disgusting._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: but you love me anyway ;)_

 _Shayila2091: Let's not exaggerate._

Smirking, Indigo carefully set her laptop terminal aside and slipped out of bed. Her toe caught on the strap of a discarded bra and she kicked the offending garment away before lacing her fingers, arching the stiffness from her back in a long stretch. The satisfying staccato _crack_ of her knuckles popping seemed far too loud against the soft rise and fall of strings and waning woodwinds that provided the soundtrack to the ethereal forest onscreen. Why did she still feel so intrusive in what was supposed to be her own space?

Indigo didn't hasten back to bed after she'd heeded the call of nature, despite the too-cool air stroking up her bare legs and sneaking under the hem of her thin cotton shirt. Instead she lingered by the window as the silhouetted ward arms captured her gaze, cut glittering with a thousand distant lights against the backdrop of a thousand more distant stars. The chill against her skin seemed to seep into her thoughts and she sighed, fighting a shiver. It was strange how space looked neither black nor empty from the Citadel, but even so, she couldn't escape the feeling of being surrounded by an airless _nothing_. Still, it was a gorgeous view—not Earth by any means, but the space station had its own beauty, even if it did make her stomach feel a bit quivery.

Indigo blinked away the afterimage of Widow's pale, staring eye and slid back under her colourfully patterned duvet, once more curving her fingers over her terminal's blue-lit keypad. Beneath the play of dappled light and shadow, the turian warrior carefully collected a _tkilklin_ exuvia from where it clung with hollow legs to the trunk of a tree and crept towards the edge of the clearing. Metal whispered against leather as she drew a blade from the sheath strapped to one of her greaves—

 _Shayila2091: Careful, I think that's a s'kartha rune you're about to step on._

… and the earth split apart with a mighty _crack_ that shook even the most ancient of the trees to the most ancient of their roots. The air tore itself into a shockwave that knocked the two adventurers off their feet and the wisps scattered, leaving shimmering traces of silverypowder like snail tracks against the weathered bark. The turian staggered to her feet, her pale face striped with cobalt blood oozing from a gouge in the plates above her left eye.

 _Shayila2091: S'kartha rune. Told you._

In no mood for Shayila's smug smartarsery, Indigo glared at the line of text, muttered something that rhymed with _'duck cough'_ , and closed the chat window in a small act of petty rebellion. Her heart skipped when she saw tar-like darkness oozing in great roiling humps up out of the fissure that bisected the clearing, moulding itself into inky-figured nathak hellbeasts with eyes like glowing embers and hunched, knobbly spines.

Shayila lunged straight into the fray and took down one of the needle-toothed beasts with three mighty swings of her axe, ichor spattering a sticky black tattoo over her armour and face. Swallowing her irritation at the asari's gung-ho strategy (or lack thereof), Indigo sheathed her dagger and drew her bow, anticipation making her toes curl. She charged an arrow with fire magic and loosed it straight into the next hellbeast's skull. Dead leaves and clods of earth flew as it skidded backward with a cringe-inducing _skreeek_ like a violin played by a chainsaw, though Shayila cut it short by cleaving the creature's head in two.

Indigo activated her Shroud Ring of Tevali, pried from the corpse of one of Athame's Nine Dark Creedists after she'd cleared the Towers of Denarthi, and watched her turian avatar melt into the shadows. She ran her tongue against the back of her lips and rematerialised in another patch of darkness across the clearing to fell a third hellbeast with a single, well-aimed shot.

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: think we're good?_

 _Shayila2091: Don't get too comfortable._

Sure enough, the ground rumbled again and the gaping maw in the earth split further like the mouth of hell... or the turian equivalent, whatever that was. A cacophonous chorus of screeches and growls filled the clearing, but instead of the demonic horde Indigo was expecting, a blinding flash of light filled the screen.

 _SPELL EFFECT: EARTH SIPHON,_ Indigo read once her vision had readjusted. _YOUR MANA IS BEING DRAINED. REGEN RATE AT 53% … 45% … 34% …_

"Damn it, damn it, damn it." Eyes wide, Indigo scraped her teeth hard against her lower lip, her brow pulled taut into a frown. The air hissed between her teeth as a huge shatha rattler crawled out of the earth and sprang at her with a shriek she'd hesitate to call unearthly for that very reason.

 _Shayila2091: Rattler demon! Watch out!_

"Yes, thank you, Shay," Indigo muttered. She rolled away from the rattler's snapping jaws, came to a knee and drew another arrow, but before it found its mark in one of the creature's five clustered eyes, the screen went dark. Her terminal pinged again and a notification winked into view, throwing a burst of orange light across Indigo's face. She squinted at the text, her toes wriggling in time to the tumble of strings and low, dark brass chords that made her heart race during every in-game battle.

 _ONE (1) NEW E-MAIL_

 _TO: INDIGO CARTER .carter ._

 _FROM: ADMIN_GALAXY_OF_FANTASY bot .sa_

 _SUBJECT: DOWNLOAD COMPLETE!_

 _Hail, Adventurer!_

 _User_ indigo-indigoing-indigone _, your copy of_ Galaxy of Fantasy: Waters of Kolono _has finished downloading to your terminal! Confirm to begin installation. Estimated time: THREE (3) HOURS. Note: this will lock you out of your game for duration._

 _This is an automated e-mail. Please do not reply._

Ah. Excellent. More irritated than satisfied, Indigo sighed and tapped the notification closed before fluffing up her mane of unruly red hair and opening another chat window.

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: dude i have to go—kolono's installing and locking me out so i'll not be able to play for a few hours. go decimate this stupid rattler for me. whoohoo kolono!_

 _Shayila2091: I will turn its head into a pulpy mass in your honour._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: and what an honour it is. later!_ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

 _Shayila2091: Grasp your steeds—your profile tag says you're on Tayseri Ward! And stop using those ridiculous emojis!_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: 1) i'm fairly certain you mean 'hold your horses', but points for effort, and 2) that's because i'm on tayseri ward, funnily enough. 3) you know i live to irritate you, so why waste ammunition? ^_^_

 _Shayila2091: O.M.G I had no idea you were on the Citadel! Do you want to meet up? I have a chem lecture soon, but otherwise I'm free._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: what, you mean now?_

 _Shayila2091: Sure, why not? We can go for coffee._

Part of Indigo's brain chose then to suggest typing _bean there done that_ , but she ignored it. Even terrible puns couldn't loosen the knot of anxiety twisting in her chest—she knew that much from a lifetime of experience with both puns and anxiety. She chewed her lip and stared down at the message, almost as if she expected the line of text to lift off the screen and smack her in the face. Her gaze dropped to her suitcase, which sat open like a clamshell by the empty chest of drawers. She hadn't even _started_ unpacking properly. She'd left most of her stuff back on Earth so it wasn't like she had a lot to unpack, but it seemed like a lot of effort. Three days amidst the beating heart of the galactic community, and she had done piss all except make her bed and play video games. So much for her blossoming academic career at Auxua School of the Arts.

But she'd always wanted to travel. She'd never been out of her home country, and now she wasn't even in her home _system_. And hell, she was the first person in her entire _family_ to actually leave Earth. Despite her dour thoughts, she still felt that heady mix of excitement and anxiety wrapped up in a joy that warmed her chest and sparked in her very brain. It was a heart-in-your-throat feeling that had first blossomed into life when she'd found out she'd been accepted into Auxua. A feeling like the galaxy—the universe—was opening up to her. She just needed to find her feet, but since she'd never been the most logically-minded of people she'd never think to start her search at the ends of her legs.

The chat window pinged again. Far too merrily, in Indigo's opinion.

 _Shayila2091: Are you still there? You haven't died or anything, have you?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: unfortunately, no. you're still stuck with me. :)_

 _Shayila2091: Just as well. You're the cannon fodder._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: there aren't even any cannons in this game_

 _Shayila2091: Maybe there'll be another D.L.C. So, I take it that's a 'yes' for coffee?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: maybe_

 _Shayila2091: It's 'maybe' a 'yes'?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: possibly_

 _Shayila2091: Are you messing with me?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: most likely_ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

 _Shayila2091: That one's just creepy._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone:_ ( ◉◞౪◟◉)

 _Shayila2091: When you've quite finished demonstrating your truly individual approach to the art of conversation, do you want to meet for coffee?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: um_

 _Shayila2091: Okay, how's this: meet me at Laxia's in the Munia District on Zakera Ward._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: do i actually get a say in this?_

 _Shayila2091: Not really._

 _Shayila2091: :)_

Indigo narrowed her eyes at the text, then sighed and let her head fall back against the headboard with a little more force than was necessary. Pain blossomed at the back of her skull and she scrunched up her nose. There were some merits to being bossed around: it meant she didn't actually have to do anything. It was an active kind of laziness. It wasn't that she wasn't curious about her new digs (if a colossal, ancient space station housing millions of people from thousands of worlds could be referred to as one's _digs_ ), she just needed to keep… acclimatising. One nathak hellbeast at a time.

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: ughhhhh i don't know ughhhghhhhh_

 _Shayila2091: Don't be such a grouch._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: i'm not being grouchy. i've just been in my pyjamas for like the past two days_

Okay, so that wasn't _quite_ true, as underwear and a ratty old Eff Tee Elshirt hardly counted as pyjamas, but still.

 _Shayila2091: Then make sure you shower before you come. I promise you'll enjoy yourself. You'll feel better having been out and about._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: god, you sound like my mum_

 _Shayila2091: That's so sweet!_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: it really wasn't meant to be_

 _Shayila2091: You're too kind. So, are you gracing me with your presence or not?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: oh, fine. i should get out anyway_

 _Shayila2091: Excellent! There's a ghost!_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: what?_

 _Shayila2091: Not a real one, silly._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: well there's **that**_ _cleared up_

 _Shayila2091: I mean the expression! The one where you're expressing enthusiasm!_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: wait… do you mean 'spirit'?_

 _Shayila2091: Probably. So it's 'there's a spirit'?_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: **that's**_ _the spirit :)_

 _Shayila2091: Oh, good. I was close._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: were you though?_

 _Shayila2019: Yes. Now get moving._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: rightio ^_^_

 _Shayila2091: I am ignoring you and your emojis._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: wait wait how will we know who we are? each other, i mean. you know what i mean_

 _Shayila2091: You've seen my holos! You know what I look like! Or is human memory really that bad?_ _Just look for an asari in a red lab suit._

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: aw man i was hoping to meet a krogan in a pink tutu_

 _Shayila2091: Get used to disappointment. Now, get your ass over here!_

 _indigo-indigoing-indigone: can i bring the rest of me too?_

Shayila didn't deign to answer, which Indigo decided to interpret as another way of saying _shut up and get moving._ The asari was nothing if not blunt. It was one of the reasons Indigo liked her.

* * *

She'd been in plenty of shuttles before, but something about the Citadel made Indigo's journey to Zakera Ward a little unnerving. Despite the tightness in her chest and the oil slick of nausea souring her stomach, she enjoyed untinting the window and watching the multi-lighted cityscape whisk past while Tchaikovsky's fourth symphony blared in her ears.

She couldn't help but be reminded of her flight from Earth—had it really been only three days ago? It felt like a thousand years—the way the ship had eased away from the thin skin of civilisation that clung to her home planet, the gargantuan form of the Charon mass relay looming into view among the endless black sea. The hot dry static of relay travel spidering over her skin, everything shifting blinding white-blue for a fraction of a millisecond and then they were through: halfway across the galaxy, cradled by the Serpent Nebula with the faint glimmer of the Citadel winking into existence amongst the starlit reaches of alien space. She'd stopped reading her book mid-paragraph and sat up in her seat to gaze out the window at what she could see of the station, feeling excited and nervous, jittery with a spark of energy that seemed to have since been extinguished. Whether by the oppressive _too much_ -ness of the Citadel or by her own natural inclination towards squinting angrily at the bright side of things, Indigo wasn't sure.

Refusing to sink even further into the quagmire of homesickness, Indigo turned up the music and crossed her legs so she could bob her foot to the beat. No matter how knotted together her brain felt, she had always found solace in enjoying music, and so felt like the tension coiled between her shoulder-blades had loosened somewhat by the time the cab eased down onto the landing pad at the Munia District transit hub.

It was pretty safe to say that transit stations were like shopping centres: once you've seen one, you've seen them all. However, one discrepancy caught Indigo's attention as she fumbled with the safety harness before clambering out of the car, and that was the presence of a keeper tapping away at a console near a locked-down door. She'd not previously seen one in person (though she wasn't sure _person_ was the right term to use in reference to the mysterious insectoids) and couldn't help but stare as she removed her earbuds and stowed her audio player in her bag. She studied the keeper's four spindly arms, thin and frail like dry twigs, and pondered the feeling of unease that settled in her gut at the sight of those soulless beetle-black eyes.

Wait. Was it wearing… a _vest?_

"Excuse me, human—"

"Hm? Oh, sorry!" Indigo quickly sidled away from the X3M, flashing the asari who'd been waiting to claim it an embarrassed smile. The sight of the alien's crested scalp dipping under the roof of the car before the doors closed reminded her of Shayila and her stomach responded with a nervous little slither. Up until now, asari crusader Shayila2091 had been little more than an abstract concept, nestled in that awkward, murky area between acquaintances and friends. Meeting that abstract concept in the flesh was… daunting, to say the least.

The exit kiosk chimed as Indigo swiped her transit card and quietly made to join the queue of commuters awaiting clearance to enter the district proper. The air in the hub was pleasantly warmer than in the car and she relaxed a little, feeling like she might have gathered some calm after all... only for said calm to scatter to the winds when she passed one of the Citadel's many advertisement pillars, which lit up like a talkative Christmas tree and blared: _"Shocked: What ho. Help. Help. Help."_

"That Goddess-damned thing!" the asari manning the Customs desk groused, pounding the desk with her fist and making Indigo jump again. "It's been going off all day since that _daefaufen_ drunk elcor lumbered into it! If I hear one more line from that stupid play or another Goddess-damned Burgat advert, I swear—"

 _"Insincere endooorsement,"_ a deep, mechanised voice stuttered, _"youyouyou have not experienced Shakespeare until you have heard him in the voice ofofof elcor."_

As curious as she was about what was apparently an unforgettable fourteen-hour experience, Indigo made a silent vow to buy a physical copy of _Hamlet,_ track down whoever had the bright idea of installing motion-sensitive public advertisements, and beat them over the head with it. She spotted the familiar Unicom logo at the base of the pillar and wondered if her mother, who worked for the company as a software developer, knew who the culprit was.

Once her heart had slid back down into her chest from her throat and resumed beating normally, Indigo smoothed the bodice of her dress in an effort to adopt an air of nonchalance while sidling away from the impromptu matinee. "Yeah, sorry, that was me," she explained, wringing her hands together. "I mean, right now, I just set it off—I didn't mean to—I just…"

She trailed off once she realised no-one was listening, and wondered if it'd seem weird if she boarded a shuttle back to Tayseri—scratch that, back to _Earth_ —right there and then. Instead she hurried over to take her place in line behind a hanar. She ran her fingers through her hair and grimaced when her still-damp curls snagged painfully on the rings she wore. It was silly, but as she watched the iridescent bands of light blossoming like starbursts across the hanar's flank, Indigo couldn't help but marvel at how aliens were so… alien. She wasn't as freaked out by them as she'd thought she'd be. Sure, they were kind of weird to look at and she knew she had a _lot_ to learn about interspecies social cues and etiquettes, but the fabled uncanny valley was little more than a vaguely eerie dale.

That said, something about the keeper was downright unsettling. It was still working at its console, its papery green skin lit by orange light fixtures set into the adjacent wall. What was it doing? How and _why_ was it wearing a vest? Had someone put the vest on it? Who _made_ the vests?

Meanwhile, the asari Customs officer appeared to have regained some of her composure and returned her attention to the harried-looking turian commuter at the front of the line. "Apologies, sir, but as I believe I have already informed you, you are required to show your I.D., provide a license for all wetware you may be carrying, and submit to a biometric scan before I can let you into the district."

Indigo lifted her gaze from the keeper's chitinous limbs, her brow crinkling at the almost inaudible hum of her translator. That was another thing she'd get used to—eventually. It wasn't loud enough to be intrusive or even noticeable half the time, but being aware of it was like being aware of your blinking, or breathing, or the position of your tongue in your mouth. It was _annoying_.

Her view of the Customs desk was marginally obstructed by the hanar in front of her and the two krogan in front of… him? her? it? (she made a mental note to research hanar pronouns) but she saw the turian's head snap up in response as his slate-grey mandibles flared in what she read as a show of indignation.

"This is ridiculous!" he barked. Indigo found herself listening carefully to the dual-layering of his deep voice with a concentration she normally reserved for tuning up in orchestra. "I'm going to be late for my appointment!"

 _"—ksshk—Aye, there's the rub,_ " Hamlet agreed in ponderous monotone.

"It's just due process, sir," the asari said, scratching at her naked scalp with a truly heroic air of disinterest that probably took a few centuries to perfect. "Please remove all bio-amps—"

"I'm not a biotic!" the turian said hotly. "Do I _look_ like a biotic?"

"—and weapons from your person," the asari finished smoothly.

"Weapons? What weapons? You think I'm some kind of terrorist? Is that it?" The turian let out a strained kind of growling sound while snapping a half-turn so he could wave a gloved hand towards the two krogan behind him. "Why aren't you checking _them_ for weapons?" he demanded, his tone making it quite evident that he thought the krogan were much more likely to be armed. (Indigo wasn't entirely sure if she agreed with that presumption or not, and she despised herself a little because of that.)

"Because you're first in line," one of the krogan rumbled, somehow still sounding quite menacing. The growly bass of his voice sent a shiver down the back of Indigo's neck. "Enjoy it while it lasts."

The hanar wobbled a little where they stood. "And the probability of this one carrying wetware is small," they said with what Indigo thought to be a faint hint of indignation colouring the smooth timbre of their voice. She watched, fascinated despite herself, as what she could see of the front of their body glowed a brighter hue with every syllable. "This one cannot easily conceal a firearm, unless it inserts it somewhere rather uncomfortable."

"If I may interrupt," began the Customs officer, leaning forward to prop her elbows on the desk and addressing the flustered turian commuter, "sir, if you won't submit to a weapons check, I will have to move you to the back of the queue and call my superiors to deal with the situation. There are others trying to get through."

"Noticed that, did you?" remarked one of the krogan. His friend gave a short, harsh laugh like the bark of a shotgun. "Hurry up before I introduce your crest to your cloaca, turian. The last time I waited so long to get anywhere, I was in the womb."

Indigo tried to cover her snort with a cough and ended up making a sound not unlike the one a nathak hellbeast made when Shayila crushed its skull with her axe, except hopefully without spraying viscous black fluid everywhere. The asari officer glanced at her and she responded with a sheepish smile.

The door to the security corridor opened, revealing what Indigo could only see as the underside of a large canvas shuffling through, with a pair of regulation C-Sec boots visible underneath and a disgruntled, reptilian face poking out the top. Huge, black eyes scanned the room, set inky-dark in a narrow, teal face striped with splotchy patterns of darker scales.

"Krios," said the asari in greeting, then stood up so quickly her chair rolled backwards as the irate turian commuter, sensing an escape route, darted for the corridor. "Hey! You can't—"

"Son of a _bitch!_ " the whatever-the-hell-he-was snarled in a voice that reminded Indigo of the rasp of a cat's tongue, stepping in front of the turian and flinging out a scaly arm to stop him from barrelling past. He must have pushed the turian back, for the latter staggered and lost his balance. The canvas fell to the floor with a smack of wood just in time for the turian to regain his footing by stepping heavily on the wooden slat across the back of it, which broke with a _snap._

Spitting a harsh sting of consonants that could only be a curse, the turian recoiled, slipped, and stumbled backwards in a blur of long flailing limbs while trying to catch up with his own momentum. Indigo's breath caught as he careened into one of the krogan, who grunted his disgust and shoved him away.

"Hey, hey, break it up!" the asari shouted, striding around her desk. The turian drew himself up to his full height and brushed a hand down the front of his suit, looking affronted. She fixed him with a hard stare and folded her arms. "Sir, kindly escort yourself to the bench over there and _wait_ while I call my superiors."

"I will not be treated like a common criminal!" the turian spat, jabbing a talon in her face. "You're just as bad as those _racist_ human officers! No wonder C-Sec's going to the pits."

"It sure takes longer to get through Customs these days," one of the krogan mused. Indigo snorted, then blushed when the asari shot them both an icy look.

His expression so sour Indigo could nearly taste it, the teal-scaled officer bent to settle his canvas upright against the wall, then shoved the turian forward and growled, "Get moving."

 _"It seems like you're always on the run, Krios,_ " a very different voice chirped as the alien herded the sulking turian past the queue and pushed him quite unceremoniously towards the nearest seat. The sound of his name had the officer glancing over wide-eyed (or, rather, wid _er_ -eyed) at the pillar. Indigo bit down on her spreading smirk. _"When you're not serving meals at Nuara's on Kahje, you're working double shifts at Flux! But when's the last time you stopped for a bitebitebitebitebite—ksshk—"_

Perhaps he felt someone watching him, for the alien's eyes flicked to her as stalked back to the door to retrieve his canvas. Indigo looked away.

"Screw this!" the turian snapped, shoving himself to his feet. He strode towards the shuttles, ignoring the asari officer's tired-sounding protests.

 _"Eterni-Gel,"_ a smooth, female voice purred as the turian got into a shuttle and made an escape Indigo didn't think he deserved to make. _"Because nothing should stop you from embracing—ksshk—Burgurgurgurgat. The other blue meat."_

"Hey," one of the krogan grunted, fixing the asari officer with one beady eye before cocking his head towards the nattering pillar. "You gonna make this thing shut up or what?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll send for someone to…" She glanced towards Indigo, who blanched and stepped back a little, hoping she wasn't going to be _volunteered_ , then looked over to where the teal-scaled officer was inspecting the damage to his canvas. "Hey, Krios," she began, "I know you're heading home, but do you think you could do the honours?"

There was a long, uncomfortable moment wherein Krios appeared to debate some form of argument—Indigo could practically see the cogs ticking away under the surface of his dark-streaked scalp. His angular face was hard to read, but the frown pinching his brow and the corners of his accented mouth was a familiar enough expression. Finally, after looking almost longingly towards the shuttles behind Indigo, he gave a curt nod and went over to the pillar.

"Thanks, kid," the asari said, her thin lips parting in a brief but warm smile. "I'll make sure it's logged as overtime."

 _"Whywhywhywhy—ksshk—why not pick up a stick of Burgat?"_ the pillar suggested brightly. Indigo decided she might just do that. If she ever tracked down the person responsible for these advertisements, it seemed a good idea to have something other than a book to hit them with. She glanced over as Krios leaned the canvas against the pillar and opened his omni-tool. The light shifted in strange ways across his two-toned cheeks and the plates of his brow. There was sliding sound and a thud as his canvas fell over; he settled it upright once more with a scowl.

Resigned to the fact that she may very well be trapped in this transit station until the last syllable of recorded time, Indigo took the opportunity to sidle closer to the keeper and take a closer look, her hands loosely clasped behind her back. Were all the keepers wearing vests? Was that one of C-Sec's duties, putting vests on keepers?

She'd thought no-one had noticed her tentative examination of the keeper, and so was startled yet again when a scratchy voice roused her. She could almost feel it as a pressure against the back of her neck.

"You're not supposed to disturb them."

A prickling feeling spread across Indigo's scalp. She turned to see Krios leaning around the pillar, his dark eyes fixed on her. They flashed pale as he blinked a set of membranous secondary eyelids much like those of a cat. He didn't look annoyed, but something about him made Indigo feel rather put on the spot.

"I—I wasn't," she stammered, raking her fingers through her hair before clasping her hands together at her chest in her best impression of innocence. "I was just—"

 _"If youyouyou were watching this on the new Mannovai 'Avatar' widewidewide-field surround-vid projector, you could see that there's a naked asari behind me!"_

Krios' steady gaze left Indigo's as he shot the pillar a withering, lip-curled glare before jabbing at his omni-tool. The holo fizzled out with a descending hum, leaving the pillar looking naked and dull. Indigo couldn't help the tight smirk that lifted the corners of her mouth at Krios' satisfied expression.

As if on cue, the canvas fell over again.

"Do you want me to hold that?" Indigo asked, already making her way over to the pillar.

He beat her to it, though, and it was with an amusingly territorial air that he settled the canvas against the pillar yet again before crouching at its base. The pale glint of his pupils followed the purple flow of her dress as she came sweeping to a stop beside him. More than a little disconcerted, Indigo offered her most approachable smile—which felt a little rusty—when he looked her in the eye.

"It's fine," said Krios shortly, returning his attention to his readings. A muscle in his jaw tensed as his features settled into something just short of a scowl; Indigo could see the subtle ripple under the softer-looking, ribbed maroon skin there.

Indigo frowned. "Are you sure?"

He grunted his assent, then knocked the canvas with his elbow while opening one of the pillar's side panels. Indigo caught it just before it collided with her chest and held it steady, frowning. Krios' huge black eyes met hers again, this time with the hint of a grudging apology in the set of his brow.

"I'll just hold it," Indigo offered, her tone verging on insistent. She redoubled her grip after he nodded and returned his attention to the pillar's innards. After checking that Krios wasn't looking, she reached down and touched the broken framing through the tear in the plastic, hoping he'd be able to fix it. She couldn't help but cast fleeting glances at the fins cresting the odd shape of the alien's skull as he worked, eyeing the dark stripes snaking down his neck under the collar of his uniform.

Evidently her stealth I.R.L. wasn't nearly as good as it was in _Galaxy of Fantasy_ , as he raised his head to meet another of her not-so-sneaky glances and said in a rather flat, resigned tone, "I'm a drell."

Now that she was closer, Indigo could hear the subtle layering of his voice and she felt another jitter of nerves at the sight of his inner eyelids blinking vertical and pale over those dark eyes. "Right…" Her face felt hot, and she drummed her fingers once against the canvas frame. "I, um, I didn't ask."

"You were going to," he countered. One brow ridge twitched down as his eyes narrowed contemptuously, but his voice lacked any real venom. He just sounded _tired_.

"No, I wasn't," Indigo muttered, resisting the urge to fold her arms and look completely childish, mostly because it meant she'd have to let go of the canvas.

A pause, short and sharp. His eyes were so unnerving, so _alien—_ no more than two inky black pools with barely a glint of silver for an iris, like a coin in the depths of an ocean.

Indigo ran her fingertips across the edge of the canvas as the drell resumed poking about in the pillar. "Well, _I'm_ a human."

"I noticed," said the drell. He stood up and dusted off his hands. His pupils caught the light as he brought up the diagnostics he'd taken with his omni-tool.

Indigo leaned her elbow against the top of the canvas and propped her chin in her hand. "Well, er, sorry," she said sheepishly. "For making you uncomfortable. I didn't mean to be rude or anything."

Krios made a muffled _mmphrrghm_ sound in response, which Indigo decided to interpret as something along the lines of _apology accepted_ , and scratched disinterestedly at the dark streak of his cheek frill with his free hand. The middle and ring fingers were fused together and Indigo looked down at her own hand and flexed her fingers, lips pursed. "I get stared at a lot," he mumbled after a pause.

Indigo's gaze snapped back up at that. "I wasn't _staring_ ," she insisted, bristling. "I was _looking_. It's an entirely different vibe."

Krios made a kind of chuffing sound, almost like a snort, a growly puff of air deep in his chest that alarmed her slightly despite the upwards quirk of one corner of his mouth. Despite his evident focus on the task at hand, he seemed to be debating on whether to speak or not, so she waited, not sure of what to expect. After casting another fleeting glance towards her, his brow pinching, he evidently decided to keep silent and return to his work.

A few minutes passed before the drell's eyes met hers yet again over the top of the display. Indigo pretended she hadn't been trying to read the scrolling text on his omni-tool and smiled rather feebly. "So, you paint?" she ventured. She shifted from foot to foot so she could roll the stiffness from her ankles, steadying the canvas as it tilted towards the pillar.

Krios blinked twice—once for each set of eyelids—and scowled. "What?" She knew he'd heard her; the 'what' seemed to be more along the lines of the _what-the-hell-who-are-you-why-are-you-still-talking-to-me_ variety.

Indigo arched a slender brow, her smile turning wry. "I couldn't help but notice the canvas."

He nodded and shifted on his feet, looking… embarrassed? Indigo wasn't sure. "I suppose it's hard to miss."

She snorted. "Yeah, there's nothing stealthier than a big rectangle waddling towards you. And it made a pretty good barricade. Until you dropped it, that is."

"I wasn't _waddling_ ," he said, the low burr of his voice taking on an indignant tone.

"All right," she relented, amused, "you were the very picture of grace."

He'd opened his mouth to form a retort when a burst of static stabbed the air between them, making them both jump. Indigo pressed her lips together to fight her smirk as his brow ridges pinched low over annoyed eyes and he returned his focus to the pillar.

The krogan and hanar had gone, leaving the Customs officer typing away at her terminal and looking rather relieved to be relatively alone. Indigo blew out a sigh, idly playing with her hair. A dark-eyed glance cut her way coupled with a slight raising of one brow ridge told her that her fellow detainee-in-transit had picked up on her impatience, but he didn't say anything even as he clicked the panel shut with an air of finality.

"All done?" she asked him.

"Hopefully," Krios mumbled, looking at the floor and kneading the muscle of his partially-sleeved bicep. He hesitated before adding a stifled "thank you" in the most resentful show of gratitude Indigo had ever witnessed.

Indigo decided not to take his tone personally. "You're very welcome," she responded airily. "Sorry I stared at you earlier, I was just—"

"You're admitting it?" he interjected, a triumphant glint in his cool eyes as they met hers.

Indigo laughed. "Absolutely not." She leaned her weight on one hip and stretched her calf. "So, do you do a lot of repair stuff like this with C-Sec?"

It was like she'd hit him. The slope of his broad shoulders tightened and his face _stiffened_ , his lips pinching together and his jaw clenching, and for a split, inexplicable second he was all coiled anger, brittle as thin ice and sharp as broken glass. "I'm not w—" He cut himself off, biting the words into a thin, static silence. A slight movement under the wine-coloured ribbing at his cheek told her he was probably biting the inside of it.

Taken aback and a touch intimidated, Indigo frowned her confusion and eyed him carefully but kept silent. It was obvious that little outburst hadn't been of his own volition, and sure enough he ignored her as he scrabbled for his equilibrium. A few long moments passed before the drell turned the advertisement back on and stepped back to assess his handiwork, folding his arms across his chest.

 _"Carter, it's been four months since you've had a job. Isn't it time you rectified that? Exciting new opportunities—"_

Indigo grinned as the drell shot the advertisement an irritated glare and switched it off. "This thing is _really_ judgemental," she remarked, shoving down the memory of the day she'd been fired. Four months later, that still smarted.

Avoiding her eyes, Krios raised his chin to scratch at the thin strip of teal skin that cut through the ribbing at his throat. Now that his task was done, he seemed not to know what to do with himself—nor with her—so she alleviated the awkwardness slightly by giving him the canvas.

Their fingers brushed as he took it and Indigo retreated, clasping her hands in front of her and feeling more awkward by the second. "I'm Indigo, by the way," she said, figuring she might as well do the thing properly.

Still not meeting her eyes, he rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. "Kolyat," he mumbled. His gaze locked onto something over her shoulder and she turned to see the asari Customs officer sitting up in her chair, evidently having noticed they were done.

"Thanks again, Krios," she called from her desk. "I'll make sure Bailey knows about this. And thanks for the help with that _daefaufen_ turian."

The drell offered another mumble in reply and adjusted his grip on the canvas so he could pick it up. Indigo couldn't really tell what with the washes of coloured light cast over the hub, but it looked like the ribbing under his frill flushed a hotter colour.

Indigo smiled at him and clasped her hands behind her back, rocking back on her heels once before settling. "Well, this has been so much fun. Let's never do it again." She looked at the canvas, then met his eyes. "Do you want me to help you carry that to the car? Will it even fit?"

"It's fine," he said, looking even more uncomfortable. After hesitating for a moment, he dipped his impressively-sized chin in a farewell nod and _didn't waddle_ his way to the shuttles.

Indigo finally made her way through the checkpoint with no complications save for the discomfort of the scanning grid stabbing light into her eyes, but another unwelcome swell of nausea hunched in her gut as she emerged into a small C-Sec lobby that opened out into the Munia District Plaza. She spotted Laxia's Café across the square and crossed over to dawdle outside, watching the ever-moving shoppers under the colour-tinted shadows made by scrolling banners and holoprojections. Her fingers drummed at her thigh as she paced outside the entrance to the café. There was a turian C-Sec officer arguing with an elcor across the way, and Indigo watched the slow stretch and pull of huge grey muscle under the deep red caparison on his? her? its? back with apprehensive curiosity as the huge alien shifted on its feet. Maybe it was the same elcor who'd messed up the ad. The turian glanced towards her, and she looked away.

"Indi!"

"Christ!" was all Indigo could manage to say in response, due in no small part to the tall maroon-and-black blur that had hurtled towards her and lifted her off her feet, wrapping her in a bear hug so tight she felt like a sushi roll. "Bloody hell, Shay!" she squeaked as her attacker spun her around a few times before setting her down.

The asari drew back and grinned a wide, easy grin. She was tall, tall, tall; whip-thin and a little on the lanky side. "You know, _most_ people start with a 'hello'."

"So, what, was giving me a bloody heart attack _your_ 'hello'?" Indigo demanded, but she found herself smiling despite the deafening thump of her pulse in her ears.

"I'm just keeping your toes on," said Shayila sweetly, giving Indigo's shoulder a friendly squeeze.

"You certainly are!" Indigo agreed, not bothering to correct her. She scrubbed a hand through her hair and let out a slightly shaky laugh. "So, um, yeah. Hi!"

"We've covered that," said Shayila, taking Indigo by the arm and steering her into the café. "Come on. Coffee. Food. Talk. And more coffee. Why did it take you so long to get here? I thought Tayseri's transit system was finally glitch-free."

"Nah, I just got held up." Indigo fought the urge to wrench herself free and tried not to stare at the asari's lavender skin as the overhead banner threw soft pink light over her heart-shaped face. She wasn't going to do very well on the Citadel if she stared at every alien she saw.

"Goddess, I can't believe you're here," Shayila was saying. "When were you going to tell me you'd moved? I thought we were _friends._ "

" _Extranet_ friends," Indigo corrected, cocking a brow. "You don't count. I'm joking, I'm joking! I was going to, but I just, er—" She paused when she noticed the frown drawing a crinkle between the asari's delicately patterned brows. "What?"

"You've got…" Shayila reached out towards Indigo's chest and picked something off her vest before Indigo could slap her hand away.

"Oh. Oh, my God, it's—" Indigo let out an incredulous laugh. "It's a cat hair!"

"You brought your _cat_ with you?" Shayila asked, sounding disgusted, but she held the single white hair up to eye-level between thumb and forefinger and inspected it with interest.

"No, no, he just likes to sleep in my laundry." Indigo cast an embarrassed glance down at her unironed dress, then looked back up at her companion. "I may or may not have worn this when I flew here from Earth."

"Charming, Indi. Is this the same cat that put earth on your bed?"

"Soiled—he _soiled_ my bed," confirmed Indigo after a moment, laughing a little, "and yes."

She savoured the bitter aroma of coffee and the sweeter scent of cake as Shayila led her through the café, a quaint little place with plush seats and cosy booths sectioned off by glass partitions painted with shimmering holoprojections. It reminded her a little of the restaurant she'd waited tables at back on Earth before she'd been fired. A huge picture-window showed the stretch of skyscrapers tall against the infinite sky interrupted by the streaks of light made by the traffic. It was a view much like the one from Indigo's flat, only without that seedy Tayseri atmosphere of half-reconstructed buildings and glitchy light shows.

Shayila had evidently optimised her booth as a working space and spread an array of folders, datapads, and O.S.D.s over the table, her terminal idling next to an empty mug. Indigo spent a few seconds hovering a few feet away, fiddling with one of the rings on her fingers while Shayila fussed about with her academic paraphernalia. "I'm not interrupting, am I?" she asked.

"I wouldn't have invited you if I couldn't spare the time," Shayila answered while straightening a sheaf of papers. Her quick, dark gaze raised to meet Indigo's and she smiled. "Come on, sit down."

"Is all this university stuff?" Indigo asked, making sure her dress stayed neat as she sat. One of the spiky leaves from a nearby potted plant caught on her sleeve and she pulled it free with a frown before propping her chin in her hand.

"Chem notes," Shayila clarified. "I'm in Latharos' xeno-geo programme, majoring in physics and chemistry. Bit of biology on the side, because it's fun. And you, you're a musician, right? You play that bone thing."

"Trombone," Indigo confirmed, grinning. "Anyway, so how'd you go with the nathak? We were in a bit of a pickle there."

" _You_ were the one being pickled," Shayila pointed out over the datapad she was absently perusing. Indigo saw her plump lips curving into a playful smile through the blue-lit holoscreen. " _I_ was fine. The nathak are no more, so we can go into the ruins as soon as you're back online."

"For someone who has no musical inclination, you sure do toot your own horn a lot."

"Well, I'm certainly not tooting _your_ horn," said Shayila, laughing. She put the datapad on top of the pile and stretched her slender arms, gloved fingers splayed, before sitting forward and fixing Indigo with a rather discerning brown-eyed gaze. "So, what brings you to the Citadel? I thought you lived on Earth."

"I do. I mean, I did. I got into Auxua, so…" Indigo shrugged. "Here I am," she finished, rather lamely.

"And did you forget I lived here or did you just forget to tell me you were moving?" asked Shayila, but she looked amused.

"I don't know, I just thought I'd told you," Indigo began, taking a sugar packet from the holder and fiddling with it without really knowing what she was doing, "and then I sort of forgot you lived here, and you know I haven't been on _Galaxy_ for like a week, and then yeah, okay, well, I kind of… I just forgot about you."

"Ouch."

"I mean that in a nice way!" Indigo amended hastily, worrying the packet between her fingertips.

Shayila looked unimpressed. "What's your pad like?"

"It's all right," Indigo said, choosing to ignore Shayila's reprehensible use of the word 'pad'. "I don't know. I'm just not settling in all too well." Abandoning the crumpled sugar packet, she paused to fiddle with a lock of hair framing her temple, tying it into a knot and untying it. "You know, you're the first person I've really properly talked to in like three days."

"I'm flattered."

"Don't be. My options are wearing thin."

"You're so mean," Shayila complained, but one corner of her dark mouth tugged in an amused smirk. "So, you finally bought _Kolono_? Are you going to do the Civil War quest?"

"Yeah, I think so," Indigo said. She shifted back in her chair and ran her fingertips along the edge of the table. "I don't know what side to go with, though. I mean, the Tarvinel have the right idea about abolishing the Vivernan Accords, but I really don't like Imperator Primus. Plus, the S'kitherine armour is really nifty."

"You could always just steal some," Shayila suggested.

Indigo put a hand to her chest and gave a horrified gasp. "I _beg_ your pardon? What kind of devilish miscreant do you take me for?"

"The one who tried to pick my pocket and slit my throat in a tavern," Shayila told her.

Indigo's face felt hot. "I was drunk, okay? Drunk I.R.L.!"

"No excuse!" Shayila said sweetly. "At least it made for an interesting first impression. I think you sent me—what was it, fifty messages? Trying to apologise."

"Now _that's_ an exaggeration," Indigo argued. "It was probably more like thirty."

Smiling, Shayila shook her head, then looked up at the waitress who'd come to take their order. "Armarli Blend, please."

The waitress turned her expectant gaze to Indigo, who eyed the menu Shayila had left on the table and quickly scanned the upside-down text. "Sorry. Er… may I please have the Cipritine Chocolate Delight?"

The waitress blinked and looked for a moment like Indigo had spoken in Pig Latin. "I'm sorry, but it is against health regulations to serve dextro items to non-dextro-amino-based citizens."

"Huh? I mean, sorry?"

"It's made for turians," Shayila explained. "It'll make you sick."

"Oh! Right. Sorry, I'm an idiot. Do, er, do you have any hot chocolate for human people?"

The waitress suppressed a sigh and tapped at her datapad. "One Armali Blend latte, one _levo_ hot chocolate. Anything else?"

"No, thank you," Shayila said, shooting a grin at Indigo, who had become incredibly interested in the napkin holder.

"God, I'm so embarrassed," said Indigo, laughing and leaning her head in one hand.

"I know you're playing as a turian on _Galaxy of Fantasy_ , but you can only take the roleplay so far," said Shayila rather matter-of-factly. She grinned with affectionate humour over at Indigo, flashing straight, white teeth.

"Oh, har, har." Indigo watched rather glumly as a volus patron received a violently orange drink and a straw to slot into his suit. "God, I'm never going to get used to this." She sighed and raked her fingers through her hair again.

"Used to what?"

"All _this_ ," Indigo repeated, flapping her hand vaguely towards the entrance to Laxia's. "I feel so _lost._ "

"You'll be fine." Shayila's silvery voice held a with a note of dismissal. "Just give it a while."

"It's just really weird, though." Indigo sat her chin in her palm and frowned thoughtfully at the salt and pepper shakers. "I just feel like—I feel like I'm here for a holiday or something, and then I'll go back home soon. But I won't. I'm _staying_ here. It's weird."

"I know what you mean," said Shayila. "We moved to Illium after my dad died, and it took me ages to feel settled. You'll adapt. When do you start at Auxua?"

"A few days," Indigo replied, nervousness spiking in her abdomen at the thought. For all her anxiety at living on the Citadel, her academic career was an entirely different kettle of floundering fish.

"You've done well to get in there," said Shayila, somehow managing to sound smug on Indigo's behalf. "Auxua is a top-rate school. Always rates highly in the surveys."

"You sound like my dad," Indigo told her, twitching her nose.

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It wasn't one," retorted Indigo mock-huffily, unable to hide her smirk and feeling a little like she'd slipped down a certain Freudian slide as she realised she'd referred to Shayila as her mother _and_ her father. (Of course, asari were monogendered, so that made it a _little_ less weird, right? Right?) Maybe she was even more out of her depth than she'd thought. She shoved the thought away.

Shayila laughed. "Now look who's being insulting! You're such a _nali sh'vakit_."

"Ditto."

"What? Isn't that some kind of cleaning product?"

"No, it means 'you too'. Like, 'you're also a gnarly wash kit' or whatever you said."

" _Nali sh'vakit,_ " said Shayila, her annoyed expression vaguely reminiscent of the waitress'.

"What's it mean?"

"The rough translation is 'soft pebble', meaning a little pellet left by a veknir, so it basically means 'you little shit'."

"Oh," Indigo said, and laughed. She'd expected something more… sophisticated. "It's good to know that asari curses also revolve around bodily functions."

"Yes, I think it's a somewhat universal fixation."

"What's a vek—er, thingy?"

"They're little animals with huge flappy ears, kind of like, what are they called? Rare-bits?"

"You mean rabbits?" Indigo asked, not bothering to hide her smile.

"Yes, those. Except without that weird hair stuff."

"Fur."

"Right. I used to try to catch the wild ones on our estate back home when I was a kid. I even _melded_ with one, and it freaked out and _bit_ me." Shayila tugged her glove down to show Indigo a small scar on her slender wrist.

"Wait, what? I thought asari melded to, like, you know…" Indigo circled her hands in the air, trailing off as Shayila raised a lack-of-eyebrow. "Liaise," she finished.

"You and the rest of the galaxy," Shayila scoffed, rolling her eyes. "It's not always like that."

The waitress returned with their drinks expertly balanced on a tray and set them down, somehow managing not to upset the small mountain of whipped cream atop Indigo's hot chocolate.

"Okay, this makes coming out here worth it," Indigo said once the waitress' long blonde ponytail was out of sight. She eased a spoon through the cream and glanced over at Shayila. "You want some?"

The asari shook her head and swallowed a mouthful of her own drink. "No, but can I have a marshmallow?"

"Take 'em all," Indigo said, sliding the saucer over to her.

"I knew meeting up with you would be good for something." Shayila flashed a grin and chased down a marshmallow with a sip of her coffee. "So, why Auxua? Surely there are lots of music schools on Earth." She set her mug down and wet the dark stripe middling her lower lip with her tongue. Indigo blinked at the flash of blue, then her eyes widened as she studied the asari's coffee.

"Your coffee," she said, her voice too high, "it's… _green._ " It was rather a nice shade of green, kind of minty-coloured, but that was beside the point.

"And? Your drink is _brown,_ " Shayila retorted. "Not exactly an appetising colour."

"All food turns brown after a while," Indigo said without thinking, then laughed at her own joke.

Shayila shot her a half-disgusted, half-amused look. "Do you want to try it?"

"May I?" asked Indigo, leaning forward and settling her elbows on the table.

"Sure." Shayila slid the saucer and mug over.

The porcelain warmed Indigo's fingertips as she picked up the drink and sniffed it. Her nose wrinkled minutely, but she took a sip. Her expression must have amused Shayila, because the asari grinned and said, "Shall I ask for some water?"

"No, I'm fine," Indigo managed. After wiping off the dark stain left by her lipstick with her thumb, she slid the mug back to Shayila. "If that concoction was ever shown a picture of a latte, it wasn't looking."

Shayila rolled her eyes. "Don't be so rude," she huffed, snaffling another marshmallow. Her lips smacked as she chewed, and Indigo clamped her hands between her thighs to keep from throttling her. "So, Auxua?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah. I don't know—Earth is just kind of… human-centric." Indigo threaded her fingers through her hair and sat back in her seat. "I mean, I could take courses in xenomusicology back home, but I wanted to get out. Be part of the galactic community or whatever."

"It's good to flex your wings," Shayila mused.

"Stretch your wings," Indigo corrected, a little distracted as she stirred the cream into her drink.

"Whatever," Shayila said breezily, sipping her coffee. "You humans have a ridiculous way with language. It's a wonder you can communicate at all."

"At least we don't have green coffee," Indigo retorted, then choked as she took a too-large mouthful of hot chocolate. She hadn't found her feet, but she thought she _might_ have glimpsed her toes.


	2. Tupari and Paracetamol : Garland Waltz

**TUPARI AND PARACETAMOL / GRANDE VALSE VILLAGEOISE (A.K.A 'GARLAND WALTZ' FROM _THE SLEEPING BEAUTY_**

* * *

Maestro Katerina Saenz—clarinettist, bassoonist, xenomusicologist, and current conductor of the Tayseri Philharmonic Orchestra—tossed her head to shake a wayward lock of dark hair off her forehead and raised her baton in a way that made Indigo picture a bored puppet master nonchalantly tugging a string. "All right, let's just run it," she ordered, her voice carrying across the stage despite her light and matter-of-fact tone. " _Tutti_ , from the beginning."

Stifling a yawn, Indigo straightened up in her seat and blinked away the bright spots of reflected light dancing on the bell of her trombone. A headache had taken root in the base of her skull, but she did her best to ignore it while playing. Fortunately, Saenz was anything but nonchalant and detached when she conducted. Her dark-eyed glare cut across the stage as her baton slashed the air, her jaw tight with a tension that Indigo felt claw up her own spine. The orchestra played the instruments, but the conductor played the orchestra.

"Keep the pulse, strings! Come _on!_ " Saenz shouted as they lagged a little, and she actually started tapping her baton against her music stand for a few bars. It was irritating, but it got them back in time. "You're supposed to be _waltzing_ , not lumbering!" she yelled as she cued the brass section.

Indigo glanced up from her sheet music just in time to see the maestro's pinched expression change abruptly to surprise as the baton flew from her hand and threatened to turn one of the violists into a musical varren skewer. Tula shrieked like a startled cat and nearly fell sideways off her chair, her cheeks turning purple as laughter and scattered applause climbed the curved walls and high ceiling of the Auxua's Sinean Auditorium.

"Whoo-hoo! Yeah!" crowed Cuilam, dark mandibles flaring wide in a sharp-toothed grin that Indigo _still_ found mildly unnerving even after nearly three weeks sitting with him in class. She snorted as he flipped one of his timpani mallets over in the air, tried to catch it one-handed, and dropped it.

Saenz graced them all with one of her rare, tight-lipped smiles as Tula handed back her baton, but her posture was still stiff as a turian general's and she wasted no time cueing them back in.

Two hours later, rehearsal finally came to a close, and Indigo was fantasising about curling up under her colourful duvet like a vaguely disgruntled burrito and taking a nap. Her headache had migrated forwards sometime during Tchaikovsky's _1812 Overture_ (which they'd had to rehearse _sans_ cannons, much to Cuilam's disappointment) and settled behind her crunchy-feeling eyes as a dull throbbing she could only just tolerate.

"Good playing, everyone," Saenz called over the chatter as everyone packed up. As she gathered up her sheet music and baton and slipped them into her bag, Indigo heard her sigh and resolved to practise more. "Remember, our next rehearsal is in the Elbrim Hall over near Petrovi Square," she reminded everyone, her dark-skinned face painted aglow as she checked her omni-tool.

"Aw, shit, really?" groaned Daniel while he hefted his double bass off the stage. "I hate Elbrim. It's bad enough I gotta be there for Sokil's xenomusicology lectures."

"It's bad for the rest of us that you're there, too," Abeda joked as she pulled out one of the slides in her horn to empty it of water, then flinched away, laughing, when Dan jabbed her in the side with his bow.

"Yes, well, the elcor _beshka_ ensemble is performing in a few weeks for their Festival of the Many Flowers, so they'll be utilising this space for their rehearsals," Saenz told them. While her tone was light and matter-of-fact, Indigo could see the faint lines of tension set in the line of her jaw as she made for the door, and understood the source of her frustration. The Tayseri Philharmonic wasn't part of the Auxua School of the Arts, but since the Dilinaga Concert Hall had taken a—what was the technical term?—a shit-ton of damage from the geth attack, they'd had to rotate through Auxua's rehearsal spaces while the Tayseri City Council dithered about with repairs. It was hardly professional and a damn nuisance for non-students.

So maybe _dithering_ was a harsh way of looking at it, but between a lack of funding, C-Sec's tussling with increased crime, and the keepers working to their own inscrutable and rather inconvenient timetables, the whole situation was a bit of a ward-wide mess. There were entire schools of bigger fish to fry throughout the station than the logistical troubles of a symphony orchestra, and that geth ship had been one truly gigantic fish. A shudder gripped Indigo's spine at the thought and she paused while zipping up her trombone case, kneeling by the first row of seats. Even just seeing that thing on the news had been freaky. She could hardly imagine what it had been like to be there in person.

"You all right, Red Rum?"

Indigo looked up at Dan and gave a weak nod. "Just tired," she explained, tugging the zipper home. "Headachey." After double-checking the fastening, she gave the case a little smile and an affectionate pat.

"Been partying hard, huh?" asked Dan, laying his bass down like he was dipping a dancer so he could retrieve his bag where it had been nudged underneath one of the seats. "Livin' the night life?"

Indigo snorted and got to her feet. "Sure… if a party can be defined as 'binge watching _Life of the Manal_ in my pyjamas and playing _Galaxy of Fantasy_ all night.'" After a few weeks of server crashes and infinite loading screens, it seemed the good folks at Neuroware had finally sorted out most of the kinks in _Kolono_ , which was good news for Indigo's gaming habit and bad news for her sleeping habit. She swung her case onto her back, letting the familiar weight tug at her shoulders.

"Life of the what-al?" Dan asked, one dark eyebrow sweeping up as his equally-dark curls flopped over his forehead.

"Er, 'manal'," said Indigo. She twisted her thumb ring, resisting the twinge of embarrassment that pressed at the back of her neck. "They're kind of like the asari's evolutionary equivalent to chimpanzees. They were just taken off the critically endangered list after like twenty years of conservation efforts." She shrugged, lips twitching into a sheepish grin. "My parents are big on history and all that kind of stuff, so… yeah, sometimes I watch nerdy documentaries for fun."

"Eh, well, you gotta get your kicks somehow. And I can't judge—I've been watching _Thousand Year Honeymoon_ … religiously."

"I'd never have guessed you were one for asari soap operas," Indigo mused. She gave Dan a conspiratorial smile. "I'll take the secret to my grave."

"Nah, I'm man enough to own up to my own addictions. Anyway, I got some painkillers if you wanna pop some pills," Dan offered, already poking through his bag.

Indigo read the label on the box he dropped rather unceremoniously into her palm. "Paracetamol?" She fished two pills out from the foil card and handed back the box. Her fingers curled around them as she hunted for her water bottle. "Isn't that why there's no aspirin in the jungle? Because the parrots..."

"Okay, for that, I'm taking those back," Dan joked, and Indigo protectively clutched her fist to her chest and grinned.

After downing the pills and making sure she had all her belongings, Indigo made her way along the aisle between the plush red seats. She stopped in her tracks when she passed Tula, who was carefully loosening her bow hairs and laughing at something Cuilam was saying.

"Hey," Indigo greeted after a moment, smiling at them. "I noticed you broke like five bow hairs," she told Tula. "Satisfying?"

"Satisfying and exhausting." Tula sighed as she slipped her bow into her case. "The overture will be the death of me."

"Yeah, this programme will probably kill us all," Indigo said. Her smile turned mischievous when Tula met her gaze over her shoulder. "I mean, you _were_ nearly impaled by a flying baton."

"Oh, yes, my life flashed before my eyes," Tula said. She zipped up her viola case and shouldered it.

"Musta been a long flash," Dan mused as he sidled up to them with his bass. "Haven't you had a bicentennial?"

Tula scoffed. "Just because _you_ have the attention span of a prejek paddle fish."

Dan put a hand to his heart. "Tules, that's a knife in the back."

"Stabbings and impalement," Indigo said. She raised her eyebrows. "We're a violent orchestra."

"I'm excited about having _actual cannons_ ," Cuilam said, his amber eyes gleaming with an excitement that made Indigo question whether he was really the right choice to man said cannons. He bounced on his toes a little, hands clasped behind his back, mandibles flicking against his chin. "Have I ever told you how much I love human music?"

"Yep, this concert will _definitely_ kill us all." Indigo laughed. "It's been nice knowing you guys. At least we'll die doing what we love."

"Speak for yourself, Red," said Dan. "I don't plan on bleeding for my art."

"I'll make it quick and painless," Cuilam offered. "Minimal blood."

"That requires subtlety, and you're about as subtle as a chainsaw, jackass," Dan said, cracking a grin and giving the turian a playful shove.

"Which, to be fair, is good for a percussionist," Tula pointed out.

Cuilam's brow plates twitched down in annoyance as he regained his balance, but his mandibles twitched outwards once in a grudging show of amusement. "I don't even _have_ an ass," he muttered.

"Sure you do," Dan replied dismissively. "You talk out of it all the time."

"'Jack-lack-of-ass'?" Indigo suggested, arching a brow. Dan shot her a glare, and she retaliated with her best cheeky grin, which slipped off her face as he settled an elbow on her shoulder. She wanted to shove him away—maybe poke him in the ribs for good measure—but she didn't want to risk him dropping his bass, so she settled for scowling and folding her arms.

Dan seemed unperturbed, as ever, and swept a floppy lock of dark hair off his forehead. "So, Tules, Red Rum, Jackassless—" he grinned at Cuilam, whose mandibles flicked as his brow plates lowered, which Indigo took to be the turian equivalent of rolling one's eyes "—you coming with for some chow? I'm really jonesing for something flaky, fried, and fatty enough to clog my arteries."

The strange gestalt organism made up of black holes and hungry varren that was Indigo's stomach snapped its slobbering mass of toothy jaws at the mention of food, and she shifted on her feet as it growled like a shatha rattler in _Galaxy of Fantasy_. She hadn't eaten since before her xenomusicology lecture that day, but she was tired, and she had leftover pasta waiting for her in the fridge. "I'll pass," she decided. "I'm going to go home and sleep."

"Suit yourself," said Dan.

Tula's patterned brow crinkled. "What's 'chow'?"

"'Chow' is food," Dan explained dutifully, sounding a little deflated.

"Why not just say 'food'?" Tula pressed, narrowing her pale blue eyes at him.

"It's not pretentious enough," Indigo said before Dan could answer. She gave her best innocent grin as he rolled his eyes and decided she was too much trouble as an arm-rest. "You lot have fun. See you… whenever." She flapped her hand in response to her classmates' goodbyes before slipping out into the lobby and through the front doors.

The outside air ('outside' being a somewhat loose term, given she was on a space station) was cool and dry and Indigo curled her arms at her waist as she wandered across the quadrangle, bound for one of the main entrance gates and the street beyond. She spared an upwards glance at the wards stretching impossibly huge above and around her, tightened the line of her mouth in response to the nerves slithering in her gut, then scowled at herself and marched on past the School of Law and the Auxua Library.

The unwritten pulse of footsteps and indistinct murmur of voices pressed into her and she quickened her pace, her trombone case bumping against the backs of her thighs with every stride. Unlike the stark brightness inside the Citadel's buildings, the light was dim and shallow—washes and streaks of neon colour laid against angled shadow with a thousand buildings and skycars like gleaming cat's eyes. Despite the fact that raw, unbridled life pulsed in its every humming corner, the Citadel felt so natureless. Even the many-worlded flora blossoming within confines of glass and metal felt strangely filtered; kept perpetually flowering in an artificial spring sustained by sun lamps and the green-tinted shimmer of aeroponic mist.

Indigo's omni-tool pinged when she reached the gate. She sidestepped around a group of asari and stopped to open the message that had appeared.

 _[USER "SHAYILA T'LEYRIS" C8H10N4O2 . IS SENDING YOU A CHAT REQUEST] [ACCEPT] [IGNORE]_

Slightly bemused but not altogether irritated at the interruption, Indigo made a fist to crack the knuckles of her right hand one by one, flexed her fingers, and hit _ACCEPT_.

 _ST: Indi! Is that you?_

 _IC: it sure is_

 _ST: Great! Are you busy?_

 _IC: not really. just heading home_

 _ST: Will you be free later on to help me with something?_

 _IC: depends on what it is_

 _ST: I bought a new sofa and I need help._

 _IC: i advise sitting on the flat, squishy side with the cushions ;)_

 _ST: I mean with moving the old one, smartbutt._

Indigo closed her eyes and let out a sigh, her brow crinkling. She was tired. She'd had a two-hour lecture, a tutorial, and orchestra rehearsal that day. She wanted to eat an ungodly amount of pasta and go to sleep. She didn't want to move a couch. She didn't—

 _IC: where?_

 _ST: My apartment. Zakera Ward._

 _ST: I'm buying pizza._

Well, _that_ changed things.

 _IC: i should be there in 45 minutes_

 _ST: Thank you so much! I should put your blood in a bottle._

 _IC: i very much like my blood where it is, thanks_

 _ST: You know what I meant._

There were a few situations in which having someone's face close to one's crotch was acceptable—desirable, even—but barrelling into a volus in the middle of a crowded boulevard was not one of them. Indigo leapt back as if burned, feeling her heart hammering against her sternum as she pressed a hand to her chest. "Shit! I'm so sorry—I didn't see you! Are you okay?"

Fortunately for Indigo, the volus in question seemed entirely unruffled, and merely blinked up at her as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Perhaps being walked into was a daily occurrence for the volus people. _Ksshk._ "I hope you will consider voting for Tanis Oteni in the upcoming election, Earth-clan."

"Wha—Election?" Indigo echoed before she could think, still a bit flustered. She brushed a tight curl out of her eye and frowned when a strand slipped against her lashes.

 _Ksshk._ "The wards are appointing new members to each prospective City Council." _Ksshk._ "I hope you will consider Tanis Oteni as the Auxua District's candidate."

Indigo nearly flinched away when his stubby fingers brushed her hand but she recovered quickly enough to let him press a datapad into her palm. An asari's face in unblinking miniature gave her a winning smile.

The volus drew another wheezing breath— _ksshk_ —and Indigo's gaze returned to him. "Her doctrine: repair, rebuild, reach out." _Ksshk._ "Repair the damage, rebuild the ward, and reach out to the—"

"I'm so sorry, but I really have to go," Indigo interrupted, her brow crinkling with her apology. The image of Oteni's face flickered as she waved the datapad through the air. ( _"We can make Tayseri Ward into the bright star it used to be!"_ piped a feminine voice.) "Sorry!"

 _Ksshk._ "Good day, Earth-clan." The volus sighed, a motion which involved most of his body slumping, as Indigo hurried away.

Despite her rush, Indigo arrived at the Auxua District transit hub much later than she'd expected, but that was unsurprising considering her life-long lack of punctuality. Equally unsurprising was the clipped chime of her omni-tool, alerting her to a new message from Shayila as she set her trombone on the floor and plopped herself down onto one of the benches to await a shuttle. ( _"Together, we can make a difference!"_ chirped the muffled voice from inside her bag.)

 _ST: Are you en route?_

 _IC: waiting at transit station. i'm going to be later than 45 minutes, sorry_

 _ST: Why?_

 _IC: partially because of who i am as a person and partially because i missed the shuttle_

 _ST: Then catch the next one._

 _IC: i've missed that one too. i do, however, have a plan, and i think you'll admire its cunning simplicity, which is to catch the next next shuttle ;)_

 _ST: By the Goddess, you're so annoying. Just get on with it. And stop sending me winky faces! It's creepy!_

Indigo smiled as she closed the interface and folded her hands in her lap, her feet tucked neatly under the bench. Off to her left, a woman clad in the now-familiar cut of C-Sec black-and-blue was pacing up and down next to a glass partition and arguing with someone over the comm line about a lack of postings in the nearby Lamia District. Indigo sighed and stretched out her legs so she could cross them at the ankles and gazed absently at a nearby banner advertising the new Solar Electronics outlet on Arie Street. She arched a brow as it scrolled to an anti-racism poster (sponsored by C-Sec, of course) and went back to watching the distant skycars run rivers of light through the wards. Tayseri was big on open views in harmony with its many alcoves and planter boxes of transplanted flora, so from here Indigo could see almost the entire ward arm reaching out. She was surprised to find herself settling into the view with some semblance of comfort, one booted foot tapping against the other to the beat of the waltz they'd been rehearsing as it turned over in her head.

Almost unconsciously, her left hand twitched in her lap to bring up her omni-tool as her thoughts turned to her parents, but she let the interface wink off a second later. Between her less-than-ideal extranet connection and Tayseri's piss-poor power grid, she hadn't had much contact with them outside of a couple of lagging e-mails.

She missed them. She missed _home_.

A shuttle to Zakera Ward eased down onto the landing pad with a whine as its thrusters engaged. Indigo glanced around at the other commuters idling by the guardrail or sitting on the seats before hastening towards it, swiping her transit card, wedging her trombone in the legspace of one seat and clambering into another. The interface dimmed to idle after she keyed in her destination on the shuttle's nav-console and Indigo swallowed as her stomach protested the upwards momentum when the cab lifted off and joined one of the orderly streams of traffic.

After untinting the windows, Indigo shifted in her seat in an effort to get comfortable and folded her hands in her lap, scowling as the safety harness tugged across her chest and shoulders. She hunted through her bag so she could reapply her lipstick, finding it between her book of etudes and her mother's copy of _Juggling the Monkeys: An Insider's View of the Tower_ , which Indigo had forgotten was in her bag when she'd left Earth.

The quiet hum of the cab and the soft whoosh of passing traffic drifted into a pleasantly blurring soundscape and she leaned over to rest her temple on the window as lights shifted soft over her face. A faint warmth from Widow's pale light uncoiled a tension set deep within her and her eyelids drooped as her fatigue hit her with all the force of a truck.

Indigo didn't realise she'd nodded off until she registered the subtle shift in momentum as the skycar dipped down out of the orderly lanes dictated by the Citadel's transit navigation grid and peeled off into the Kar Yun District's transit hub. Her backside was numb, and she frowned as she wiggled upright in her seat. Her knees cracked as she did her best to stretch her legs in the confines of the car, and she gave the tangle of curly red hair that had once more flopped over her right eye an irritated flick.

Going through security proved a painless experience (unlike that fateful first time she'd visited Zakera) but Indigo found herself slowing her pace as she wandered through the brightly-lit lobby into the main hub, her jaw tightening against a yawn into the back of her hand.

 _"You could **really** go for a Tupari Sports Drink, couldn't you?"_

Ugh. What was it with the Citadel and everything constantly talking at you? It was enough to send a person mad. Still…

Indigo skirted around the outstretched legs of a turian who was lounging in his seat, his cat-like nose buried in a book. He shifted up in his seat a little as she passed only to wince when his spur knocked against the underside of the chair. Indigo came to a stop when the vending machine's holographic interface and stylised display flickered merrily to life with a bleep as the motion detectors registered her approach.

 _"I knew a man who went three days without a Tupari Sports Drink! He got hit by a **shuttle!** "_

Raising the machine her best disdainful eyebrow, Indigo fed it her credit chit and punched some buttons. The canister dropped into the drawer with a heavy clunk along with the two chocolate bars she'd ordered for good measure. She tucked them under her arm while slipping her chit back into her wallet before holding the drink up to frown-level.

The canister itself was unremarkable—clear plastic, frosted with condensation, and the word Tupari printed along the side in a jagged font. The contents, however, were… blue. So bright a blue that Indigo wondered if it was radioactive or had trace amounts of eezo. Hmm. She'd always been intrigued by biotics. Maybe Conatix had branched out a bit. You never knew.

 _"Thank you for purchasing your fix of **delicious** Tupari!"_

"Oh, shut it," Indigo grumped as she turned to continue on her way. A faint blush tinged her cheeks as she accidentally caught the eye of the turian, who'd stopped reading for a moment to lower his brow plates at the bushy-haired human snapping at a vending machine.

Tucking her chocolate into her bag for later consumption ( _"Repair, rebuild, reach out!"_ ), Indigo traipsed through the heavily-populated boulevard and stopped at an alcove to await one of the Citadel's many lifts that would take her up to the level 31 pedways. From there she'd be able to walk to Shayila's apartment block.

"Did you hear about Ferris Fields?" came a hushed voice behind her, undercut by the subtle electrical hum of a nearby light fixture. Indigo glanced over her shoulder and saw two elegantly-dressed asari approaching the lifts.

"Oh, it's awful," answered the taller of them. Her eyes met Indigo's for a second and shone with pity. Indigo turned away and straightened her waist-length jacket, feeling awkward. "Those _poor_ humans."

"Ten thousand gone," the first asari said sadly. "That's twice as many as were on Cyrene."

"Goddess."

"I've heard rumours… people think it might be Collectors."

The taller asari's laugh was more of a disbelieving huff, and Indigo could imagine the derisive expression that accompanied it. "Collectors? No, it's probably just slavers or pirates. You know how the Terminus Systems are." Indigo heard a long, pitying sigh, followed by a silence for three heartbeats before the tone of the voice changed in an effort to lighten the mood: "So, I heard you and Talem got up to some _debauchery_ at I-Nova the other night."

" _Elenya!_ "

"Relax, I'm not going to ask for the _gory details_. Although, part of me wonders what _elcor_ would be like in the sack."

"Elly, there's a _human. Right. There!_ " the mortified asari hissed.

"What do you care? Besides, I'd be surprised if she could even hear us with that _bush_ growing out of her head."

Indigo frowned and bit her lip as her cheeks flushed but she feigned ignorance. She leaned her hip against a nearby planter box and idly rubbed a dark green leaf between her fingertips. It made them smell citrusy.

"Don't be so mean! And anyway, we didn't… you know…" Indigo heard the soft shuffle of shoes against the floor and imagined the shorter asari shifting uncomfortably, wringing her fingers together as her voice dropped to a whisper. "I still have that—that problem."

"What, the neural itching?"

"Don't say it so loud!"

"Did you try that cream I gave you?"

"The Eterni-Gel? Yeah, but it smells like a vorcha's ass. And _don't_ ask me how I know what a vorcha's ass smells like, or I'll put you in stasis and leave without you."

Mercifully, they were interrupted by a soft chime as the lift arrived. Indigo made to stride in only to hang back and let the asari proceed when she saw how crowded the lift was.

"Thank you, human." The shorter asari smiled at Indigo before letting her friend tug her inside with a hand locked around her wrist.

Grateful for the relative quiet, Indigo absently gazed at an advertisement for the upcoming asariwood biopic _Make It Look Real: The Lili T'Nigus Story_. She wound a lock of hair through her fingers in methodical but unconscious loops, her own thoughts turning sombre as she dwelled on what the asari had said of Ferris Fields. Another colony… just gone.

She and her parents had nearly indulged in what her dad had liked to call their "inner frontiersmen" and moved off-world after Unicom had offered her mum a pick of postings to a number of developing colonies a few years ago. It would have been a pretty easy move, logistically speaking—her dad was a history teacher, so he could have found work relatively easily while her mother settled straight into her contract—but Indigo's grandfather had fallen terminally ill so they'd stayed on Earth.

What would have happened if they _had_ moved? Would their lives (and probable deaths) be yet another statistic in an anecdotal mystery?

Another lift arrived beyond an adjacent set of doors but Indigo stopped short before entering as she locked startled eyes with the drell C-Sec officer she'd met a few weeks back in the transit station. Her memory tended to go on holiday a lot of the time, but she'd always been better with faces than names, and his was quite a memorable one. She hadn't encountered any other drell on the Citadel.

He appeared to recognise her, if the slight widening of his large eyes was anything to go by. The two of them blinked rather dumbly at each other for a second—which was a pretty impressive sight in itself, considering between them they had three sets of eyelids—before the elcor beside him rumbled, "Impatiently: are you getting in, human?"

Oh. Right. Blushing almost as red as her bushy mane of hair, Indigo sidled into the elevator, apologising as the elcor had to shift to the side to make room for her trombone. The massive alien had evidently been on some kind of shopping spree and appeared to have been pretty liberal with his spending, with four huge bags slung over his broad back like a pack horse. Indigo realised such a comparison was crude at best and deeply insulting at worst, but her thoughts were then otherwise occupied with the slight scuffle that occurred as she accidentally stepped on the C-Sec officer's foot. He scowled his discontent and glared at her with an intensity she could almost feel as a pressure spreading across the pale skin and hard bones of her face, though he'd looked away a second later.

If looks could kill, she'd be very, very dead. (As opposed to just _slightly_ dead.)

"Sorry," she mumbled once her brain clunked into action.

The drell—Krios, her brain reminded her, a flash of mental clarity had absolutely _nothing_ to do with the name tag on his breast—didn't reply, just cut a tight-lipped glance her way and fidgeted with the thick utility belt at his slim waist. His splotchy-scaled arm bumped her side in the process and jostled the Tupari in her hand. Indigo suppressed a shudder as his scales brushed against her bare forearm, feeling the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. He recoiled from the contact as well, and Indigo tried to sidle away to preserve her limited personal space as he folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall, but there was nowhere to sidle _to_. A frown creased her brow as a strange smell wafted up her nose and she realised it was the drell—he smelled like fertilised earth and damp refuse.

There was a beat of silence, and then a scratchy voice beside her: "Which floor?"

Indigo was taken off-guard. She looked up at him but his head was turned to the side so her eyes only met the dark streaks snaking down his scalp. "What? I mean, pardon?"

Krios turned to look at her, his irises silver and thin as blades. His scaly brow ridges were pushed into a frown that was fast growing familiar. Of all the memorable things about him, his scowl had stuck with her the most. "Which floor?" he repeated, one square-palmed hand poised before the lift's interface. "You didn't—"

"Oh, right, shit." Indigo switched the Tupari from hand to hand, feeling incredibly stupid. "Er, 31. Please. Thanks. Sorry. Um, officer."

He hesitated. A strange, brittle expression crossed his even stranger face for a moment before he said, "Don't call me that," and turned his stare to the console.

"Call you what?" Damn, she was firing on all cylinders today.

"'Officer'."

"Why?"

"I'm—" He closed his eyes for a moment and appeared to sigh, but the action stiffened his posture rather than relaxing it. "Just don't."

"Okay. Sorry." Nonplussed and slightly irritated at his tone, Indigo scratched at her hairline and grimaced when a few strands of hair caught on a hangnail—or, as her grandfather used to say, a 'stepmother's blessing'. She had never quite been able to figure out why.

"Annoyed: hurry up," the elcor said, his delicate mouth-slits fluttering with irritation. There was a three-second pause before he added: "Please."

The three of them were cast in deep blue shadow when the doors slid shut after Krios jabbed the buttons and the lift began its ascent. Indigo's eyes widened as a familiar flush of dizziness blurred her head. She leaned her shoulder against the wall to regain her footing and focussed on breathing deeply, wishing she could ride a lift without getting light-headed from vertigo.

The drell beside her stood ramrod-straight, staring past her at the dulled holo-lock on the door as if he expected it to do something other than glow faintly orange. Indigo distracted herself from the tilting sensation in her brain by studying the odd shape of the elcor's feet for a second before turning her attention to her culinary (mis)adventure.

The canister made a satisfying popping sound as she finally opened it, but her lip curled as she caught a whiff of the… well, the _fumes_. The stuff smelled frankly _dangerous_ , though it did overtake the old-garbage smell of Not-Officer Krios' uniform. As if on cue, he glanced her way in response to the sound, and she pressed her lips together in a sheepish almost-smile.

"What is that?" he rasped, narrowing his large eyes at the drink and sounding like he'd just flipped a stone to reveal some kind of horrifying creature underneath.

Indigo grinned and quirked a brow. "'Tupari!'" she crowed in her best impression of the machine, which wasn't very good. "'The drink that eats your bones!' Or something like that, anyway. Calling it a 'drink' seems generous. And optimistic."

"It smells…" He trailed off, seemingly unable to find adequate words to describe the olfactory assault.

Indigo couldn't blame him. "Like someone dumped three bags of sugar into a bottle of toilet cleaner?" she suggested.

Krios twitched his broad shoulders in a movement resembling a shrug and looked away, rubbing the pads of his fingers across the line middling his really quite impressive chin.

The Tupari tasted about as good as it smelled and made her feel faintly nauseous but Indigo drank it anyway, nodding her head a little to the beat of the tinny-sounding muzak. Her mouth left a plum-coloured imprint on the lip of the canister. She looked over with a start when Krios' omni-tool pinged with what looked like a new e-mail. His elbow bumped against her upper arm as he adjusted the angle of the interface so as to see better, sending quite a lot of the Tupari slopping out of the canister onto the front of Indigo's shirt and jacket.

"Bloody hell!" she yelped, looking down in dismay at the dark patch on her stomach and chest.

To his credit, there was a vague sense of contrition to Krios' frown as he glanced at her. "Sorry," he muttered, turning his attention back to his omni-tool.

"It's okay." Indigo sighed, unsticking her shirt from her torso and shivering at the chill against her skin. "It's not very nice, anyway, so maybe it's better _on_ my stomach, rather than _in_ it. Although I wouldn't be surprised if it eats through me." She shot him an impish smile, which he ignored.

"Glad I could help," the drell grunted, obviously distracted by whatever e-mail he'd received. His face remained inscrutable as he deactivated his omni-tool, but Indigo heard a deep, almost textural sigh that brought a shiver to the back of her neck.

Indigo swallowed the mouthful of Tupari she'd taken and shuddered at the way it made her teeth tingle. "So, were you able to fix your canvas?"

Krios turned to look at her, perking a brow ridge, and she met his gaze. Those black eyes caught the pale light peeping in from the shaft and Indigo felt nerves spark in her brain as it threw the silver cut of his irises into startling clarity and revealed a flash of blue. "You remember that?"

Indigo frowned her bemusement at him over the canister. "Er, yes, of course I do."

A long moment passed wherein his thoughts appeared to tick over behind his eyes. Indigo had no idea what was going through his mind, but she could feel the tension coming off him like heat curling her hair… not that it needed it. "Yeah," he said. "I fixed it."

"That's good." Indigo swallowed another awful mouthful of Tupari and made a face like she'd just sucked a lemon. "Have you been with C-Sec long?" she asked once her tongue stopped shrivelling up.

"No," he replied stiffly.

"So, if not an officer, are you like an intern?"

He folded his arms over his chest once more and looked at his boots. His frown deepened. "Something like that."

Indigo grimaced as the Tupari went down on a particularly unnaturally-sweetened note. "Sounds interesting."

"It's not."

"Really? Why do it, then?"

"I—" His gaze snapped to hers, sharp with suspicion. "Why are you asking?"

Indigo's eyes widened. "I'm just—"

 _"Shine a light into these dark times!"_ Indigo's bag chimed. _"Vote one for Tanis Oteni!"_

Krios scowled at her bag. Indigo wondered whether he actually knew how to make any other facial expression. "What the hell is that?"

"I kidnapped a City Council intendant," she deadpanned, then realised that probably wasn't the best thing to say to someone who was apparently not a cop.

There was a strange, irritable chuffing noise, and Indigo thought for a horrible second that the lift had malfunctioned, but then she saw the pleats of wine-red skin on Krios' throat ripple ever so slightly and realised the sound had come from him.

The doors pinged open once they reached level 27, and to Indigo's relief it was the elcor who shuffled out. Beside her, Krios made to shut the doors, but Indigo said, "Wait, wait, hang on! And don't leave without me—" and darted outside. She bent (rather awkwardly as wearing a trombone tended to hinder one's grace) and picked up a lumpy, purple root that had fallen out of one of the elcor's shopping bags. After examining the root for a second, she crossed over to the massive alien with three quick strides. "You dropped this," she told him, holding it out.

The elcor's delicate mouth slats twitched—whether in embarrassment, gratitude, or disgust at the Tupari smell, Indigo couldn't tell. "Ah, human, relieved request: Would you please put it in my bag?"

"Sure. Er, which one?"

"Whichever you wish," intoned the elcor.

Indigo popped the root into the bag on the elcor's bulky shoulder. "Is that okay?" she asked, looking over at what she could see of his face. He'd brought up one massive hand and had activated his omni-tool. Indigo watched with interest for a moment—how did elcor use omni-tools with only one hand? They probably used an entirely different interface.

"With sincere, purely innocent gratitude: Thank you, human," the elcor said. His omni-tool switched off and he eased out into the crowd, but Indigo's attention was elsewhere as the low hum of her translator (purely out of curiosity, she'd pitched it a few weeks ago and figured out it rested a few cents sharp of an A-flat) stuttered a little.

She frowned and pressed her fingers to the bone behind her ear, feeling for the telltale bump of her subdermal translator chip. The elcor had disappeared, and Indigo's eyes narrowed.

 _"Kea dra'shin lo kul?"_ Krios asked, his natural rasp unaccompanied by her translator's usual hum.

Indigo was taken off-guard—in her careful listening for her translator, she'd almost forgotten about him. The high collar of her jacket pressed into her jaw as she turned to look at him over her shoulder, letting her hand fall back to her side. "What? I mean, pardon?"

" _Kea dra'shin lo kul,"_ he repeated curtly, his impatience taking the questioning curl off the end of his words.

Indigo felt herself grow cold with a horrifying realisation. "Oh, God. Oh, shit. I think…" She swallowed and turned on her feet to face the drell. "I think my translator's broken… I think that elcor might have… I mean, um, can _you_ understand _me?_ " she asked, nervously switching the nearly-empty Tupari canister from hand to hand. The ever-present chatter of the wards had shifted, the words taking on new inflections and unfamiliar emphases. It made her feel strangely lonely.

Her only response was a nod and an almost imperceptible lowering of the scaled brow.

"So you can understand me, but I can't understand you…" Indigo raked a hand through her hair and groaned. "This is ridiculous!"

 _"Ta'i kea dra'shin lo kul?"_ the drell repeated, his mouth a flat line as he gestured stiffly to the lift doors, and Indigo finally caught on.

"Right, yes, getting back in. Sorry," she said sheepishly as she slipped back inside. "And… thanks. For waiting," she added, smiling shyly at him.

He chose not to reply, which Indigo understood on a pragmatic basis, but she felt another inexplicable wave of loneliness and something tantamount to _rejection_ wash over her. As the lift began its slow ascent once more, Indigo finished her Tupari in an effort to calm her nerves. She glanced up at Krios and blinked, surprised, when she saw him studying her, looking almost… thoughtful? He looked away when her gaze met his, pressing his lips together.

Indigo sighed and slipped the empty Tupari canister into her bag, raising an eyebrow as Tanis Oteni said something that didn't translate. Damn it, this was weird. What was she to do? How was she going to communicate? She'd have to mime everything for everyone… wait, no—it was the other way around. She considered that in horror for a second, before smirking to herself at the thought of Shayila. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all. Still, mischief aside, it would be a major inconvenience.

Her lower lip caught between her teeth as she activated her omni-tool and opened the standard-issue translator aid program. Her fingers hovered over the interface for a moment and she frowned before looking askance at the drell. "Hey. Um. Do you mind—Can you say something?"

Krios threw her a quizzical, almost haughty look, one brow ridge quirking up.

Indigo bit down on a flash of annoyance. Why didn't people just blindly obey, no strings attached? "Just—I'm going to try calibrating it," she explained hastily. She rubbed at one of her eyelids—a lash was tickling—and sighed. "So, if you can just… like, talk, so I know if it's working? Please?"

The drell's shoulders slumped with his sigh as he shifted his weight to one foot and crossed his arms, leaning back against the wall. And then he started to speak. He began with random words and phrases—she knew they were completely off the top of his finned head because he listed them off with no order to his inflections—and she did her best to calibrate the software. The hum of her translator stuttered and bleeped but did no actual translating, and just as Krios had begun reciting something from memory that was obviously very boring, Indigo yelped as her omni-tool _zapped_ her.

"Ouch! Damn it!" she snarled, shaking the pain from her fingers and glaring at the interface. "What the hell did he do?"

" _Kalun te_ —" Krios began, but cut himself off with an annoyed expression as he no doubt remembered speaking would make about as much sense as a hanar bodybuilder. He eyed her with what could only amount to trepidation before extending his hand towards her, palm up. The light of her omni-tool cast strange shadows on his narrow face, his teal scales almost luminous against the dark cut of his uniform.

Indigo was suddenly struck how tall he was, broad across the shoulders, his arms marked with wide streaks of a green so dark it was almost black laid against shades of teal and aquamarine. The lift suddenly felt very small. She looked from his face to his outstretched hand and back, detesting the way she felt the urge to shiver under his large black eyes. "What?"

He raised his brow ridges, evidently expecting something of her. When she didn't move, he actually grabbed for her wrist.

"Oi!" Indigo stepped back, eyes wide, pulling her arms protectively against her chest.

Krios let out a long, annoyed breath through his bent nose, his brow ridges pinching low.

"Fine, feel free to try. Just _ask_ before grabbing. I know I can't understand, but it's the thought that counts."

The drell let out one of those chuffs of air from deep within his chest as Indigo activated the interface again and tentatively held out her arm. He stepped closer and took her hand so as to better angle the screen in front of him, his scaled fingertips curling with surprising gentleness against her palm. His clipped nails caught at the lifelines creasing her palm and the pad of his thumb brushed across the delicate bone at the back of her hand for a moment. His skin was cooler than hers, and Indigo fought the urge to pull away, feeling weirdly exposed. Their eyes locked as he let go, and a nervous, startled laugh escaped Indigo when her omni-tool zapped _him,_ making her fingers twitch and his gaze leave hers. He shook out his hand with a growl that could only be a curse and fixed her with a slightly wounded look before beginning to type.

"Sorry," said Indigo, a smile still playing at her painted lips. He glanced up at her. "I wasn't laughing at you."

Krios returned his gaze to the interface with a quick flutter of his secondary eyelids. Swallowing sudden nerves and shifting on her feet, Indigo looked around at the lift—just how bloody slow were these things?

An alien rumble caught her attention and she looked at Krios, who raised his brow ridges in question.

"No, it's not working." Indigo let out an exasperated sigh and ran her free hand through her hair. "This is so ridiculous. I'm going to find that bloody elcor and jam that root thing up his—" She was cut off as her translator let out a soft beep.

"Is it working now?" Krios asked.

" _Yes!_ Excellent! Thank you!" Indigo grinned and snatched her arm back, almost bobbing on her toes with excitement. Krios seemed a little taken aback by her outburst, and she stepped away, feeling jittery and privately blaming the Tupari. Her hair caught on her rings as she brushed her fingers against her curls and smiled warmly at the drell. "Thanks, off—I mean, er, thanks."

"Kolyat," he said after a moment, rubbing at his jaw and looking embarrassed. "Just—just Kolyat."

"Right. Thanks, Kolyat."

"It's fine."

"Right. Okay. I hope we don't make a habit of this," Indigo remarked wryly. "You know, I help you, you help me…"

"You didn't _help_ me," the drell blurted, folding his arms and leaning moodily back against the wall.

It was Indigo's turn to be taken aback. She shot him a disgusted glare he didn't see. "Okay, then. Whatever. Thanks anyway, I guess."

He blinked _one-two_ with both sets of eyelids, his jaw working for a moment before he bit out, "I meant—no-one helps me. I don't _need_ help."

"Right. 'Course not," Indigo said bracingly as the lift finally reached level 31 and the doors opened with a polite little _ding_. She clasped her hands in front of her as she stepped out onto the pedway. "Well, um, thanks, anyway," she repeated, turning to face the drell.

"It's fine," he mumbled for the third time. He didn't _sound_ fine. His eyes met hers, and his oddly pinched expression was the last Indigo saw of him before the doors slid shut.


	3. Pizza and Elasa : Working in the Coal Mi

**PIZZA AND ELASA / WORKING IN THE COAL MINE – DEVO**

* * *

Shayila lived in the high-rise 800 blocks in the Kar Yun Tenements, a decidedly more upmarket residential area than the pokey little flats in the Auxua Campus Village Indigo and her fellow students called home. The aftereffects of the linguistic debacle in the lift still swirled through Indigo's head, leaving her wound up and more than a little frazzled, but a wave of serenity settled over her as she finally shuffled to a stop outside the door of Apartment #B-52. The ache in her shoulders and neck rang in a solid 11 out of 10 on the scale of how much she regretted lugging her trombone across half of Zakera Ward and honestly, why hadn't she picked up something small and light like the flute twelve years ago instead? Or followed in her father's footsteps and learned guitar or viola?

Alone in the corridor, Indigo tucked a lock of bright red hair behind one ear before ringing the doorbell, which chimed a merry little C major arpeggio. Her satisfied smile dropped a moment later as only silence greeted her. She waited a perfunctory eight seconds, during which she scrunched up the front of her shirt in her fist as if she could wring out the spilled Tupari that was uncomfortably sticky against her skin. When nothing happened, she pressed the doorbell again, slightly harder, as if the extra force would guarantee Shayila's arrival.

Another three seconds passed, and Indigo was entertaining the frustrating notion that she might have the wrong apartment when the door finally slid open, revealing a blare of garish colours framed in warm light that eventuated themselves in the shape of a short, round, smiling asari. Indigo took one look at her dusky purple skin, hot pink shirt, bright orange scalp crests, and high-waisted turquoise shorts, and felt her retinas burst into flames.

"Oh! A human!" said the asari cheerfully, as if noticing a particularly interesting specimen at a zoo. " _Alaena'shan!_ It's nice to _daeli vu enaie!_ "

Had she suffered a less hectic afternoon, Indigo may have agreed that it _was_ nice to … do whatever she said, but instead her heart sank. "Fuck," she muttered without thinking, then met the asari's bemused gaze with horror. "Er, sorry, not you—my translator's kind of, um, broken." _Again._ "Sorry, I didn't mean to swear at you. And I think I have the wrong apartment, so, um, I'll just …"

" _Ina, ina!_ " protested the asari hastily. Her bangles jingled as one small hand caught at the crook of Indigo's elbow to stop her leaving, and before Indigo could even speak she'd been herded into the apartment.

"This is Shayila's _vashtua!_ " the asari told her, letting the door slide shut in her wake with a flourish. Her nose stud shone under the light spilling in from the main room. Indigo felt herself relax a little with the knowledge that she was indeed in the right place, only to flinch at her guide's shrill voice as she yelled, "Shay- _iiiilaaaa!"_

"Nyx- _eeeertaaaa!_ " came the response.

"Your human friend is here! But she's having trouble _vun alie naisen luane!_ "

Indigo resisted the urge to snort and let the asari lead her into a tidy, open-planned living room. She tilted her head to concentrate as the up-beat thud of a bass reached her ears; she recognised Varrencage's new album, _A Kick To The Spur_. Listening with interest to the partially-translated vocals, she took off her trombone case and stood it beside her, rolling her aching shoulders back and forth under the snug fit of her jacket.

Shayila was evidently as fastidious about her living space as she was about her appearance. A bright, sunny light warmed the pale wooden floors and off-cream walls, with splashes of colour interspersed throughout by flowering indoor plants, plump cushions, and embroidered throw rugs. A huge aquarium hummed quietly away against the far wall, with schools of multi-coloured fish darting lazily about while two odd-looking pink eel-like creatures with fluttery gills and gently waving tendrils lurked near the bottom. Indigo smiled at them. Fish were so… dreamy. She could watch them for hours.

 _"And… Kovisk has moved his knight to F5 and taken Thunloon's bishop."_

Indigo looked over to see Shayila sitting on the floor in front of the vidscreen next to a pale-plated turian woman, who appeared to be knitting an entire sheep's worth of soft-looking grey wool. She furrowed her brow and tucked strands of hair behind her ear, glancing at the elcor and human onscreen. "Hi," she ventured. "Are you watching...?"

"Chests," groaned Nyxerta beside her. Indigo stifled a snort for the second time in as many minutes. " _So_ boring."

"It's called 'chess', Nyxie," said Shayila as she rose smoothly to her feet. "And it's only boring to the uncultured." Beaming, she rushed forward to gather Indigo in an expensively-perfumed hug. "Tootle-oo! You're late!"

"Hi. Sorry. I did tell you I was going to be late," Indigo reminded her. She brushed hair out of her eyes as Shayila released her. "And 'tootle-oo' means _'goodbye'_ , you walnut."

"I'll make a note of it," said Shayila. She sniffed and frowned, looking Indigo over carefully. "Why do you smell like a mistake in a chem lab? And why is your shirt all wet?"

"It's Tupari," Indigo said, plucking at her damp shirt.

"I think you're supposed to _drink_ it," Shayila told her. "Not bathe in it."

"I don't think doing either is a very good idea," said Indigo. "I'm pretty sure it's liquefying my insides."

"Well, let me know if you need medical attention," said Shayila.

" _Tarc,_ " the turian muttered, drawing Indigo's gaze. She'd gotten to her feet, and her brow plates were pinched low into a frown as she bent to untangle the wool from her spurs. She was tall—taller than Shayila, who was taller than Indigo by almost half a head—but she had none of the asari's quick, easy grace. Instead, she moved like she hadn't yet gotten used to having so much of herself.

"Language, sweetie," said Shayila.

"Don't call me that," the turian replied. She picked up her wool and needles and put them on the sofa.

"Sorry, darling," Shayila said, her eyes warm with her cheeky smile. She turned back to Indigo. "You can put your stuff down there, by the way."

'There' wasn't anywhere specific, judging by the languid wave of Shayila's fine-boned hand at nowhere in particular, so Indigo carefully set her trombone and her bag down by a potted plant.

 _"Change starts with all of us!"_ Tanis Oteni's muffled voice informed her. _"It starts with me, and it starts with YOU!"_ Leaves snagged on Indigo's hair as she straightened up and nudged her bag further against the wall with her toe, silently vowing to one day track Ms Oteni down and chuck the stupid datapad at her head.

Shayila frowned, dark eyes trained next to the plant. "What was that?"

"Tanis Oteni," Indigo said. "She's running for Tayseri Council."

Fine lines swept across Shayila's forehead as she raised her delicate brow markings. "And you stuffed her into your bag for what purpose?"

"Ransom money," Indigo replied without missing a beat.

"What?" Nyxerta looked at the bag with alarm.

"It's a datapad," Indigo explained, laughing. "Who's running on Zakera?"

"Oh, Goddess, I know nothing about politics," Shayila said airily, waving a hand at nothing in particular. "Anyway, now that we're all here, I was thinking I'd order the pizza, and then—" Her words were interrupted as the turian swept close and pinched at her waist, eliciting a squeal that made Indigo scrunch her nose. "Goddess! I'll get you, Kaia, just you wait!"

Kaia didn't respond, just twitched her slender mandibles into what Indigo thought was a smirk as she went to the kitchen sink and filled a jug with water. Her woollen socks slipped on the polished floor, and Indigo wondered if she'd knitted those as well. "I'm going to feed Caelax," she said to Shayila as she made for the sliding glass door that led out to the porch. Her voice was low and mellow, as slow and deliberate as her gait. "You've been starving him."

"Who's Caelax?" Indigo asked Shayila. The name sounded thick on her tongue.

Shayila planted a hand on her hip, watching Kaia. "My bonsai tree."

"You mean mine. I planted it," Kaia informed Shayila gently as she stepped outside.

"I bought the pot," Shayila muttered, folding her arms as the door slid shut.

There was silence for a moment before Nyxerta gasped, whacked Shayila on the arm, and said, " _Oh!_ Shay, I found some Oceans of Thessia in the bathroom—"

Shayila unfolded her arms and fixed the shorter asari with an exasperated look. "Nyxie! We're _moving furniture_ , not having a sleepover!"

"What's 'Oceans of Thessia'?" asked Indigo while Nyxerta pouted.

"Scalp dye," said Shayila, looking bored. "Nyxerta recolours her crests every other day."

Indigo cast a glance towards Nyxerta's coral-coloured scalp crests and the streaks that accentuated the curve of her eyes and the line of her nose. Once you got past the initial colour shock, she looked quite nice. "Do you dye yours?" she asked, eyeing Shayila curiously. The taller asari's scalp was a darker lavender than the rest of her, patterned with long streaks middling each crest.

"I used to, but the dye gets _everywhere._ "

"Not if you _limae un veshtu_ ," Nyxerta argued. "Oh! _Naisen tua_ elasa?"

" _Ena. Nai ven,_ " Shayila replied. She sighed and looked at Indigo, whose eyebrows took a temporary vacation near her hairline. "Indi?"

Indigo stopped feeling for her translator chip as if she planned on performing a manual replacement and sighed, raking her hand through her curls. "My translator's glitching," she offered in explanation as she let her hand drop to her side. She activated her omni-tool with a half-hearted flex of her palm and opened the translator aid software, concern furrowing her brow at how warm the hardframe felt against her skin. Overheated hardware was never a good sign, and her omni-tool was a pretty old model to begin with. "Ouch!" she barked as another electric shock gripped her fingers into claws.

She scowled and shook her hand out before shifting her weight to one hip and swiping closed the error message that had appeared. If only she'd paid more attention when Not-Officer Kolyat Krios had fixed the problem—and if only she'd had the opportunity and presence of mind to kick the elcor in the balls… if he had them. And _that_ was a mental image Indigo could really, _really_ have quite happily gone without.

"Go sit down," Shayila suggested. "I'll _vashit elaiu_ omni-tool _na_."

"I'm sure you will," Indigo said under her breath. Still frowning at the scrolling display before her, she sank down onto the plush cream-coloured sofa. It gave a loud, multi-part groan in protest and she leapt to her feet. "Sorry, sorry! Broken couch—I forgot, sorry!"

Shayila's brow markings arched skyward, but there was an amused lilt to her painted mouth. "Well, you have been rather preoccupied." She sat on a nearby armchair with a prim fold of her legs. "Hand," she said, holding her own out.

"'Hand' to you, too," said Indigo, but she activated her omni-tool and held out her left arm.

Shayila gave her an exasperated sort of smile before her fingers flew over the keys with such fervour that Indigo had to fight not to tug her hand away. "There," she said after a few minutes. "Fixed. It should now be working at optimal capacity." She closed the program and looked at Indigo with a satisfied smile.

"It's not," Indigo deadpanned. She clasped her hands in her lap and bit the inside of her bottom lip to hide her spreading smirk, only for her mouth to pop open as Shayila made an annoyed sound and snatched her wrist. "Oi! Watch it!"

"Yes, yes, you're a delicate little flower," Shayila said distractedly. "Is it working now?"

Indigo shook her head, gently tugging back her outstretched arm and letting the interface shut off. "No, it isn't working now. I can't understand a _single_ word you're saying," she said with as much desolation as she could muster.

Shayila cracked a grin and shoved at her shoulder. "You lying _nali sh'vakit._ What model do you have? You should think about upgrading."

"It's a Bluewire II," Indigo told her, scrunching her nose and smiling when Shayila mirrored her expression. "Old, I know." She brushed aside the curls that fell forward over her forehead and stood up in time for Nyxerta to shove a glass of pale green liquid into her hand before giving another to Shayila. "Thanks," she said, eyeing it carefully. "What is it?"

"Elasa," said Shayila. "Asari liquor." She smiled at Indigo's dubious expression. "Just try it!"

"Are all asari drinks green?" Indigo asked, but she took a tentative sip. It tasted somewhat like white wine made by someone who'd forgotten how to make white wine, but despite that she found it quite nice. It certainly proved more effective at purging the chemically-sweetened Tupari aftertaste than the chocolate she'd purchased from the overly-talkative vending machine, which had turned out to have tupo berry filling.

"All right, enough chit-chat!" Shayila ordered after a moment, draining half of her own drink in one gulp. "We haven't got a lot of time, so everyone hurry up, sit down and relax while I order the pizza, and then we'll get down to the gritty titty!"

"You're such a relaxing hostess," remarked Kaia. She'd poured herself a tumbler of brandy and was swirling it around pensively.

"Mm, I feel so at ease right now," Indigo agreed.

Fifteen minutes later, they were all sitting on the floor in front of the vidscreen, nursing their drinks and watching as Dowumon Thunloon moved one of his pawns. There was the rhythmic clicking of needles as Kaia worked on what was apparently going to be a scarf, and the biting smell (which was quite reminiscent of Indigo's Tupari-stained shirt) of the nail polish that Nyxerta had apparently found in Shayila's dresser.

"That was quick," Kaia observed without looking up from her knitting. "Once, it took him five days to make a move."

"Five _days?_ " Indigo eyed the vidscreen with alarm. "How long has this game been going for?"

"Twelve years," Kaia answered, her delicately patterned brow plates shifting down in concentration as she looked up to examine the chessboard on the screen.

"Twelve _years?_ " Indigo's voice slid up the scale.

"Elcor aren't known for their speed," said Shayila.

"They're two of the best players in the galaxy," Kaia added. She set her knitting aside and stretched out her long legs, knocking over the bottle of elasa in the process.

The doorbell rang as Victor Kovisk moved his rook three squares to the right. Indigo hummed the arpeggio under her breath and felt her cheeks turn pink when Kaia's eyes found hers.

"That'll be our food," said Shayila, getting to her feet.

"I'll get it!" Nyxerta offered. Her toe rings clicked against the floor as she headed for the door.

"Thank _God._ My stomach's practically eating itself," Indigo said, grinning as she earned an "ew!" from Nyxerta.

"Thanks, Nyx," said Shayila. She sat back down next to Kaia. "Just remember to pay from _my_ account this time. As accidents go, that was a surprisingly charitable one, but…"

"Speaking of accidents," Indigo said, "what happened to your sofa?" It didn't look damaged, but she wasn't going to argue when it had groaned like a ninety-year-old contortionist.

"Nyxie sat on it," Shayila explained. "She broke the slats inside."

"I did _not!_ " Nyxerta protested shrilly from the doorway.

"Yes, you did!" Shayila turned to Kaia. "It _was_ her, right Kaia?"

Kaia gave no response other than to raise her patterned brow plates, take another sip of brandy, and busy herself once more with her scarf.

The volus at the door let out an impatient-sounding _ksshk._ "Are you going to pay or not?"

"That party," Shayila continued, "last semester break, after Yuri ate the coaster and threw the lamp at Uleni, you and Titianus got up and—"

"I've got the pizza!" Nyxerta cut in, setting down four boxes on the dining table. "Varren chorizo, vegetarian, turian meatlover—"

"We know you are," Shayila said, smirking.

"What do you—Hey!" Nyxerta went purple while Indigo snorted into laughter.

"I'm actually the guilty party," Kaia whispered to Indigo, glancing back at the sofa as they went over to the table. "Nyxerta is the third person she's blamed. I doubt she'll ever catch on."

Indigo grinned. "Your secret's safe with me."

* * *

The prospect of moving furniture seemed much more palatable on a full stomach, but that didn't stop Indigo from dozing off at the table. Her eyes fluttered open when she felt someone patting her hair.

"Wake up—oh, by the stars, it's so soft!" Nyxerta gushed, tugging at a curl. "And what a beautiful colour!" Indigo sat up, fighting a shudder as the asari's long, manicured nails brushed her scalp. "What do you do to get it so soft?"

"Nothing, really," Indigo said, self-consciously scratching the side of her nose. She stifled a yawn; it seemed the sugar hit from the Tupari had finally worn off. "I just condition it."

"Really?" Nyxerta frowned. "Condition it to do what?" Without waiting for an answer (which was good, because Indigo didn't have one), she sighed and said, "Oh, Goddess, it's so lovely! You're so fluffy and adorable!"

"I'm—um—thanks?" Indigo sputtered, rather taken aback.

"She's not a _dog,_ Nyxerta," Shayila said as she dumped the empty pizza boxes into the bin and dusted off her hands. "Come on, up you get. You'll have to move the dining table."

" _'We'll'_ have to move the dining table," Kaia corrected her. She rose from her seat, deep blue eyes fixed steadily on Shayila. "You're not getting out of this."

"Quite the opposite, I'd argue," said Shayila. She straightened the sleeves of her cardigan and inspected her cuticles. "I just see my role as more of a managerial one."

Kaia chuffed. "Then you need to get your eyes tested."

After they'd shifted various smaller pieces of furniture out of the way and cleared a wide enough path to the front door, the four of them surveyed the sofa with a collective air of apprehension. The sofa responded by surveying them with the singular air of an inanimate object.

"Remember, bend from the knees, not from the back," said Shayila as she positioned herself at the short end of the L-shape. "That's the monarchy of thumbs when moving heavy objects."

Bracing herself at the other end, Indigo stifled a snort.

Kaia narrowed her eyes. "Come again?"

"Monarchy of thumbs," Shayila repeated. "A human expression, meaning the general way of doing things. Right, Indi?"

"Er, no," said Indigo. "I mean, yes, but no."

"Well, I'm glad we cleared that up," said Shayila, undeterred. "Okay, let's get this done. And … lift!"

Grunts, groans, and muttered expletives filled the air, many of which Indigo hadn't heard before. Let it never be said you never learn anything from your peers. The four of them managed to shuffle three feet towards the door before the sofa dropped with a _THUD_. Kaia swore and darted back a step.

"Well, that was much harder than I thought it'd be," Shayila mused, dusting off her hands and eyeing the sofa thoughtfully. She didn't even look winded, much to Indigo's annoyance.

"I've half a mind to just drop it out the window," said Indigo. Her fingers were red and sore from where she'd braced them under the sofa.

"You can try, but it might kill someone. And if you get arrested, I'm not bailing you out."

Indigo feigned a pout. "That's cold, Shay."

"Besides, you'd probably be seen as an accessory," Kaia pointed out. "Previous owner of the ... weapon."

Nyxerta glanced at the front door. "I don't even think it'll fit, Shay."

"Of course it'll fit," Shayila said, but she looked a little uncertain. "I did the calculations."

"Are you sure? It looks far too big."

"Said the Consort to the Councillor," Indigo blurted.

Shayila and Nyxerta just looked at her, but Kaia's slender mandibles twitched in amusement. "Which Councillor?" she asked, brow plates arching.

"Use your imagination," Indigo suggested.

There was a contemplative silence filled only by a jazzy interlude in one of Varrencage's more experimental tracks.

"We could cut it up somehow," Kaia said, stepping back and regarding the sofa with the same careful scrutiny she'd adopted when Victor Kovisk had moved his rook. "Carry it down that way."

"Of course you'd suggest that," Shayila sniffed. "I'm not going to _butcher_ it so you can turn it into one of your weird art pieces." She looked around at them all with renewed determination. "Come on, everyone, focus! Project 'Move This Stupid Piece Of Crap' is pending!" She nudged the sofa with her toe.

Indigo sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. "Can't you just—I don't know, zap it with a warp field or something?"

Shayila made an exasperated noise. "You don't _zap_ things with biotics. It's a delicate process of shifting the molecular— _Nyxie!_ Stop floating my settee!"

"It's—easier—this—way," Nyxerta insisted, her voice tense with strain.

"You have a strange idea of what constitutes as _'easier_ '," murmured Kaia.

Fascinated, Indigo watched the swirling blue aura curling around the shorter asari and the sofa as it floated an inch off the floor and moved slowly, slowly towards its destination. Nyxerta's nostrils flared with exertion, her painted lips pressed together. After a few seconds, breathing heavily, she let the field dissipate and the sofa dropped back onto the floor.

"You're out of practice," Shayila observed.

"Am not," Nyxerta countered. "I bet you couldn't lift this for longer than ten seconds."

Shayila rolled her shoulders back and forth, set her jaw, and flared her biotics, then reached with both hands. The sofa floated one, two, three inches off the floor. "Ha-ha! Mind over matter!" she crowed, the muscles of her slender neck tightening as her shoulders tensed. "That's what Wasea always used to say."

"Who?" asked Indigo, slightly distracted by the purplish-blue glow surrounding her friend.

"Old biotic gymnastics instructor," Shayila said, her words clenched in a grimace.

Nyxerta looked confused. "I thought she was—"

 _THUD_ , went the sofa as Shayila let it drop, her shoulders slumping. She wasn't sweating—maybe asari didn't—but she puffed out a sigh as the aura faded into nothingness with a strange _thwomp_. "Sorry, everyone," she said breathlessly, leaning on the sofa's arm, "but we'll have to do it the hard—"

The doorbell rang. Indigo was closest, so she crossed to the front door at Shayila's nod and opened it. "Oh!" was all her brain could manage to come up with for a moment before it clunked into gear once more. "I mean, hi. Um. Can I help you?"

Two sets of eyelids blinked rapidly, dark scales over pale membrane over ink-black eyes as a muscle in the scaled jaw tensed almost imperceptibly. Kolyat seemed to collect himself after a beat, as he pointed a thumb over his shoulder and said, "There is a Home Spun delivery truck waiting outside for you."

"For me?" Indigo echoed, rather dully. "Oh, wait—no, this isn't my pla _AAAEEE!"_

"What the _hell?_ "

Everything flashed blue-white for a split second. Indigo could hear Nyxerta laughing and assumed she was the culprit, but all she could see was the startled face of Not-Officer Krios as she flailed in mid-air, helpless, weightless, and … _tingling_ just a little. She grasped for coherent thoughts, which slipped from her mental grasp like a wet bar of soap, but managed to form enough cognition a second later to say, " _Nyaagh!_ God! Let me _down!"_

She heard the soft scuff of Shayila's silk slippers on the floor and an accompanying admonishment: "Nyxie! Put her down!"

A sigh. " _Fiiine._ "

Indigo's knees buckled as her feet hit the floor and she staggered forward with all the expected grace of an elcor ballerina. She let out a soft "Oof!" as Kolyat's chest broke her forward momentum and heard him swear under his breath as he caught at her shoulders to steady her, though he let go a second later. He still smelled like he'd made his home in a garbage bin filled with dirt, though Indigo supposed she didn't smell much better.

Indigo righted herself a moment later and stepped out of his personal space. She rubbed at her own upper arms where he'd grabbed her, her skin crawling under her clothes, and half-turned to glare daggers—no, _swords_ —over her shoulder at Nyxerta, who tried and failed to look properly contrite.

"Sorry about that," Shayila said loudly, striding forward to tug Indigo out of the doorway. She gave Kolyat an apologetic smile he did not return. "Tell them I'll be down there shortly."

The drell didn't move, just scratched at the dark-scaled frill curving from one cheek and pinched his brow plates into an irritated frown. "I'm not a _courier._ "

"Well, maybe you could help us move this thing," Shayila suggested, nudging the retired sofa with a toe. She smiled. "Officer."

The word was evidently supposed to appeal to Kolyat's sense of duty, and Indigo bit back a smile as he just narrowed his eyes at Shayila and a very slight flush spread across the reddish-violet skin at his jaw. "That's not my job," he grunted.

"Sure it is," said Shayila brightly.

He looked at her like she'd just force-fed him Tupari, but his expression eased a little when Kaia rested a placating hand on Shayila's shoulder and said in her cool, calm voice, "We've got more than enough hands here," and flared her mandibles in a polite smile, showing sharp teeth.

"Was that two entendres?" Indigo heard Shayila wonder, and stifled her snicker.

The drell double-blinked his two sets of eyelids and Indigo took the opportunity to say, "I'll act as courier. Talk to the delivery people," and darted towards the door.

"Nyxerta can float you out the window if you like," Kaia suggested, and Indigo shot her a look over her shoulder as she slipped out into the corridor.

Indigo felt something quiver through her chest as the door shut with a soft click behind her and she turned to face the drell, who'd stepped back to give her some room, his alien face impassive. The sudden silence seemed sharp between them. She looked up at him, brow crinkling with apology. "Um. Sorry about all that," she said to him. She smoothed the front of her shirt and grimaced; it was still damp. "You were kind of put on the spot there, hey?"

"It's fine," said Kolyat, avoiding her eyes and looking as awkward as she felt. There was a moment of silence before he added, "Beats floating in the air."

Indigo laughed, taken off guard, and to his credit the drell looked a little surprised at his own joke. "Why are you here? If I may ask. I mean, we've run into each other a couple of times now. I'm not under suspicion or anything, am I?" she asked, trying to joke away her shakiness.

His eyes narrowed a little as they met hers, but after a moment he mumbled, "No. I live nearby. I was on my way home, and…" He flapped a scaled hand at nothing in particular.

"Oh. Well, that's convenient."

Whatever he'd been expecting her to say, it was obvious that hadn't been it. His brow ridges pinched together. "Convenient?"

Indigo grinned. "Yeah, so I know help is nearby if I ever get volunteered for another biotic pissing contest." She waved a hand towards the door.

The drell chuffed and scratched at his frill, looking away. "Don't count on it."

Indigo raised both eyebrows. "Quite the selfless servant of the people, aren't you?"

"You did step on my foot. That might qualify as assaulting an officer."

"You've got another. Besides—" she narrowed her eyes at him and gave him a conspiratorial smile "—you said you were an intern."

He folded his arms and Indigo found herself studying the splotchy wide streaks of dark scales patterning them, much like the ones following the line of his cheek frills and striping the back of his head. Her eyes flicked up to meet his again, and she caught the pale flash of his nictitating membrane as he blinked. "I might have been lying," he said.

She arched a brow, a smile tugging at her lips. "That might qualify as misuse of status, lying to a civilian. Plus, _you_ made me spill Tupari on my shirt!" she pointed out, jabbing an accusatory finger towards his chest.

"And you still smell like an environmental hazard," he replied.

Indigo huffed without any real venom and sat her weight back on one hip, folding her arms to mirror his posture. "Well, _you_ smell like a mouldy garden. Is rolling around in fertiliser part of your job?"

The drell glanced away and kneaded the muscle of his shoulder with the opposite hand. "May as well be."

"Sounds like you need a raise," Indigo remarked, and thought she saw the shadow of a smile curve the drell's lips. "Well, I should go talk to the delivery people. Thanks for the help."

Kolyat mumbled something indistinct in reply and gave a curt nod. Indigo smiled, lifting a hand in a wave, and hurried down the stairs before Shayila got impatient and asked Nyxerta to float her down to the delivery truck.


	4. Half A Cup of Coffee : Who Loves The Sun

**HALF A CUP OF COFFEE / WHO LOVES THE SUN – THE VELVET UNDERGROUND**

* * *

Back and forth.

Back and forth.

Back and fucking forth.

Every single lecture. For two whole hours. Stopping only to tap a few keys on his terminal to change slides or bring up a video or article for the class.

Were his legs tired? How had he not worn a hole in the stage? What would happen if he did? Would it qualify as damage to university property? Would the dean fire him?

Professor Muret Sokil seemed unconcerned with the possibility of unemployment. He continued to expound upon the instrumentation of turian Kaetus era music, pacing all the while. Strange, how Indigo found it irritating when she knew she had a tendency to do exactly the same thing.

Sokil paused to change slides, reminding Indigo that her train of thought had once again trundled to a creaking stop at Tangent Station. On a normal day she found it _almost_ easy to keep up with the salarian's rapid-fire sentences and rambling anecdotes, but today she'd slept through her alarm and had to skip her morning coffee.

"Hmm," murmured Cuilam, nodding to himself as something Sokil said clicked in his brain.

And _that_ distracting habit was another reason for Indigo's vexation.

 _Blah blah blah,_ went Sokil.

 _Hmm,_ went Cuilam. _Nod,_ went his head.

Every single lecture. For two whole hours.

Indigo boasted a limited-at-best knowledge of turian anatomy, so it was a toss-up between an elbow to the stomach or a punch to the face to shut Cuilam up. She wasn't quite sure which would be more effective. Plan C consisted of stealing one of his timpani mallets and whacking him over the head. She'd always wanted to try playing percussion.

At least her translator no longer turned everything into jumbled word salad. Her parents had transferred a few hundred credits to her account so she could get it fixed and replace her sabotaged (and outdated) omni-tool. Trying to get through coursework without understanding anything except Cuilam's goddamned 'hmm's had been a trial, to say the least.

Indigo scowled and leaned an elbow on her desk, propping her chin in her hand. That bloody elcor headed her shit list, which she longed to turn into a _hit_ list and end him. _Painfully._ Where was a mallet when you needed one?

Yet even though she tried to write off her feelings as the small print eclipsed by her thirst for fiery vengeance, Indigo knew she felt more frustrated with herself rather than resentful of the elcor's prank. She'd moved out. She was an adult. She should have been living independently and taking care of herself, not relying on other people to solve her problems like a goddamned child. Sure, being dependable was what parents were for, but that didn't stop her from feeling like absolute shit about it.

"Hmm," hmm-ed Cuilam, nodding thoughtfully.

 _The stomach,_ Indigo thought, shooting his profile a glare. If only the shooting part was more literal. _Definitely the stomach._

"It seems our time is up," Sokil announced some ten minutes later, "so that's all for now."

Indigo glanced at the few lines of notes she'd typed up and closed the barren word processor with a disappointed jab at the keys. She sighed through her nose and sat back in her seat. Her butt slid towards the edge, her knees bumping the back of the seat in front. For a moment she entertained the idea of sliding down and down until she dissolved into an unsettling pool of viscous grey paste, but concluded that it would probably be too messy… not to mention somewhat traumatising.

Sokil busied himself at his computer, closing the lecture slides. Without looking up, he added, "Oh, before you all go on to bigger and better ventures than I, I must leave you with a reminder that your _papers—_ " here he did glance up over his screen with a hint of amusement in his alien eyes as half the class froze while packing up, perhaps having hoped he'd forgotten about their assessments "—are due in my inbox at 1700 hours in two Cit-stan days."

These parting words rang in Indigo's ears; a death knell that drowned out the restless post-lecture chatter of her classmates. Another reason why she was not having the best day. Nothing like the impending due date of a two-thousand-word essay she hadn't even _started_ to make her want to crawl back bed for a few decades. She'd chosen hanar as her case study and downloaded a few extranet articles, but that was all she'd done. Her stomach sank at the thought, pulling her heart and spirits down with it until all three of them drifted in limbo a few precious inches above rock bottom. Puddledom was starting to look pretty damn good.

 _Enough wallowing,_ Indigo told herself. _For the next five minutes, at least._ She straightened up in her seat and shut off her terminal.

Beside her, Dan stretched his lanky arms and cracked his knuckles. "Well, that was fun."

"Yeah, I had a total blast," Indigo deadpanned. She slipped her terminal and datapads into her bag.

"Dan, you know that's really bad for you," said Tula. Indigo glanced past Dan at her screen and couldn't help the twinge of petty jealousy she felt at the sight of the essay of notes Tula always managed to write each lecture. Overachieving bloody asari.

"Well, modern medicine does wonders," Dan told her. "If I screw up my hands, they can just clone me some new ones." He twisted from side to side in his seat to work the kinks from his back, catching Indigo in the ribs with an elbow. "Oops, sorry, Red," he said, but Indigo felt more disturbed by the sounds coming from his spine, like dry twigs snapping underfoot. "So, you guys wanna come have a jam? Tules 'n' me have a studio booked. Right, Tules?"

"Only for a little while," said Tula. "I have a viola lesson in a few hours, and then a meeting with Youth United." She must have seen Indigo grimace for she added with a touch of reproach, "It's fun! You guys should come along."

"Hang on…" Indigo frowned and held up a finger, touching it behind her ear to her newly-repaired translator chip. "I think..." She paused, narrowing her eyes, her smirk barely constrained. "I think my translator's playing up again. It sort of sounded a little bit like you were calling a Youth United meeting _fun."_

Tula rolled her eyes and shut off her terminal. "Very funny. Why did _I_ end up in the group of snarky humans? I'm 204!"

"You're just that cool," Dan told her.

"Plus, _I'm_ not a snarky human," Cuilam pointed out, scratching at a mandible.

"What about you, Abby?" Dan asked. "Coming with for some band practise?"

"I can't; I've scheduled a vid-call with my family," said Abeda. She grunted as she hefted her bag onto one shoulder—it seemed to be a requisite for journalism majors to carry around an entire library—and picked up her horn. "My brother's stationed on Earth in Rio doing I.C.T., and he just made N3, so we're catching up to celebrate."

"That sounds nice," Indigo said, smiling despite the stab of jealousy that twisted her stomach as she thought of her own parents. They'd exchanged the odd e-mail over the past few months, but any effort to tee up real-time vid-calls tended to fall by the wayside. Her mother's organisational skills varied between _godawful_ and merely _bad_ while her father was so absent-minded it had astonished Indigo when he'd become head of the history department at her old high school. (Not that Indigo was any better on either account, but that wasn't the point.) Plus, the one time they'd actually tried a vid-call, Indigo's shitty extranet bandwidth and Tayseri's glitchy power grids meant they'd spent the whole time going back and forth asking if the vid-feed was coming through. She'd eventually gotten too impatient to bother continuing so they'd kept to e-mails since. Ironic, considering her mother worked for one of the biggest bloody comm-tech companies in the galaxy. She hoped Abeda would have better luck with her call.

Indigo shoved the pang of homesickness and self-pity into a cluttered, overflowing corner of her mind and stood to stretch the stiffness from her legs. "N3 is some Alliance thing, right?" she asked Abeda. "Like what's-her-name." She paused while hoisting her bag on her shoulder and clicked her fingers, frowning. "Shepard."

"Ah, yes," said Dan, adopting a wistful tone. "Who can forget the famous exploits of humanity's first Council Spectre, Commander What's-Her-Name?"

"Oh, piss off!" Laughing, Indigo whacked him on the arm.

"Commander of the S.S.V. Thingy!" Abeda proclaimed. "The ship that led the defence against the nefarious What's-His-Face and his army of thingamabobs!"

The five of them joined the straggle of students shuffling out of Elbrim Hall. Indigo yawned as she followed her friends down the steps leading to one of the campus' main pedways, attempting to clear her brain of the fuzz of stupor that clung to it like mould. She'd only been awake for three hours and she already wanted to go back to sleep. But she had obligations. Two-thousand-word obligations, to be precise. Talk about a mountainous molehill.

It seemed yawns were contagious across species, as Cuilam flared his mandibles in a truly epic one of his own and nearly slipped on the stairs. He righted himself with a hand on the balustrade and a furtive glance around. Indigo caught his eye and grinned, despite having spent a good deal of her time mentally exhausting her curse word lexicon at his expense.

"God, I'm glad to be out of there," said Dan after taking in a deep breath of not-really-outside air, looking relieved. "I hate Elbrim. Smells like freaking cats. All right, so Abby's homeward bound, but what about you guys?"

"I've got a criminology lecture," said Cuilam, checking his timetable on his omni-tool. "Otherwise I'd join you. But I'll be—what's the phrase? 'There with spirits'?"

 _"'In_ spirit', Cuil." A new light entered Dan's dark eyes and he nudged Indigo with an elbow. "Hey, Red, how about There In Spirit for a band name?"

"Yeah, and then we can just never actually turn up to any gigs," Indigo joked. "I don't know—I still prefer Schrödinger's Dogs."

"You know, I can't help but wonder if we actually qualify as a band," Tula mused, turning to speak over her shoulder as she was a few steps ahead of the rest of them.

"Sure we are," said Dan. "We've had two rehearsals."

"'Rehearsal' implies actual productivity," Tula pointed out. "All we've done is mess around swapping instruments."

"What was that song we played?" asked Cuilam. _"Mary Had A Little Limb?"_

Dan snorted. _"Lamb,_ Cuil."

"That should be the single for our E.P.," said Abeda.

"Mary had a little lamb," said Indigo. "The midwife was amazed." She looked up at Cuilam and grinned. "And anyway, watching you try to play my trombone was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

Cuilam shrugged, a gesture Indigo found quite odd, considering his species' wide carapace and long arms. "Hey, I can't help it if turians can't make a brochure."

"Embouchure," said both Indigo and Abeda.

"Whatever it's called," said Cuilam, dismissing their pedantry with a wave of his hand. "Listening to _you_ try to play Tula's viola was like listening to a nathak pup being squashed."

Indigo made a face. "Thanks, Cuilam."

"I thought you did okay," said Tula, looking back at her. "You just need to work on your bow hold, and not play so skittishly."

"I'll keep that in mind for next time," said Indigo, though she had no intention of there ever _being_ a 'next time'. "All right, well, I'm library-bound," she announced. "Got to start my essay." She actually wanted to detour and get coffee first, but that didn't sound nearly as productive.

"'Start'?" Tula repeated. "You haven't _started_ yet?"

"That is, er, not inaccurate," said Indigo. She shrugged despite the flash of queasiness squirming in her abdomen. "But, you know, we've still got three days."

"Two, you mean." Tula's horrified expression had eased back into the smooth, graceful lines most asari seemed to boast, but she didn't look impressed. "Tomorrow and the day after." She ticked off the days on her thumb and forefinger.

"Plus today makes three," Indigo said with a flippancy she didn't really feel, waving Tula's words away like they were mosquitoes.

"But today's half gone," Tula argued.

"Two and a half, then," Abeda cut in amicably. "But don't forget we do have the concert on the same day, so unless you can type and play trombone at the same time, I suggest you get a wriggle on."

Indigo tucked a shorter lock of hair her plait had failed to restrain behind one ear. "Well, there's no trombone part for the Mendelssohn, so there's a free ten minutes right there."

Dan snorted and hopped down the last few stairs after Tula. "Yeah, Saenz will love that," he said before jogging a few steps to catch up with the asari.

Abeda grinned at Indigo. "She'll probably get Cuilam to aim the cannons your way for the big finish."

"My time has come!" Cuilam's mandibles flared in what Indigo guessed to be a shit-eating smirk as he looked down at her. "Hope you're good at ducking."

Indigo feigned offence with a scoff. "Better than you are at aiming," she retorted, cocking a brow. "What ever happened to 'quick and painless'?"

Cuilam raised his chin, baring his neck in a turian show of smugness. "I'm branching out."

"Out you branch, then!" Indigo mirrored his posture and hit her collarbones with open fingers in the universal gesture for _come at me._ "Hit me with your best shot! I'm throwing down the gauntlet, Verallicus."

"I don't even know what that means, but it's settled," said Cuilam, his flanged voice hard as steel despite the humour alight in his amber eyes. "You, me, Tchaikovsky, and sixteen cannons."

"Really?" Indigo's smirk became a grin. "You don't want to just meet out the back of a Fishdog Food Shack and have it off the old-fashioned way? Turian-human fisticuffs?"

"Spirits, have some _class_ , Red!"

"Oh, not you too!" Indigo groaned, even though she kind of liked the nickname Dan had given her. "I'm already named after _one_ colour. Okay, fine, show-down at—where's the concert again? Reynomad—Reynom… Rey-something."

"Reyanommond Auditorium," said Abeda.

"Yeah, Reyanommond Auditorium it is," Indigo finished, fixing Cuilam with a hard, challenging smile.

"Just try not to blow it up," Abeda advised. "They're doing _Hearts On Breaking Shore_ there soon, and there's a stand in the pit with my name on it."

* * *

If you have a two-thousand-word essay to write, you need at least a metric fuckton of coffee. Yet once her friends had gone their respective ways, Indigo began to question her plan. Her self-indulgence would cost her both time and money, and… yes, _fine._ Maybe the little voice in her head was right and she was procrastinating. But _coffee!_ Coffee was the key to the fabled productivity Tula thought she lacked, right? If she had coffee, her essay would practically write itself, right? And then she'd pass this assessment and pass this class and then her moving halfway across the galaxy and costing her parents a shitload of credits would actually count for something.

Right?

She had to do well. She _had_ to. And it all depended on this cup of coffee, because it was more than just mere coffee. To call it so would be an insult, for it had become a _symbol._ A deliciously caffeinated and over-sugared testament to her blossoming academic career and her life as a musician.

The coffee Indigo favoured came from a stall, not quite big enough to be called a café, located off-campus in the busiest plaza in the district. She strode the ten-minute walk (she was _not_ procrastinating) through Auxua campus' labyrinthine sprawl of pedways and stairwells and reached Petrovi Square with a stitch in her side and the shaky first symptoms of caffeine withdrawal.

Indigo sidled through the usual crush of pedestrians and shoppers, taking care not to bump into anyone. She'd become used to crowds back on Earth, but somehow the Citadel's crowds seemed more imposing—likely because they were largely non-human. Indigo heard music playing and saw a group of elcor sitting in the centre of the square, threading together lines upon lines of rhythm and harmony with an assortment of steel drums, bells, and plucked strings. She took a moment to listen with a critical ear, recognising the music as the _beshka_ ensemble her conductor had mentioned, performing for the Festival of the Many Flowers in honour of Dekunna's springtime.

The coffee stall stood alongside a few tables and chairs bordered off by a fence and a few planter boxes overflowing with bright Thessian _demael_ flowers. Indigo relaxed a little as she approached the counter, glad to be away from the majority of the hubbub in the square. The owners knew her from her many previous visits, so she just smiled and nodded when the salarian at the kiosk greeted her by rattling off her regular order at a speed approaching F.T.L.

Once she'd paid eight credits for her metaphor-coffee and an almond croissant, Indigo paced outside the small group of people waiting for their orders. Her fingers tapped against the seam of her trousers to the beat as she watched the _beshka_ ensemble. It was odd seeing such delicate instruments played by a species so physically imposing and graceless-looking, but the elcors' notoriously slow movements did nothing to impede the pace of the music. Watching them left Indigo feeling inspired and excited about her studies, and she smiled to herself as she stroked the petal of a _demael_ flower. Even with the lingering homesickness and looming stress, she was exactly where she wanted to be. And that was the thing about the Citadel: there was always something going on. She found it, paradoxically, both invigorating and absolutely fucking exhausting.

Hence, coffee.

Did the phrase 'staring off into space' take on a new layer of meaning when one lived on a space station? Despite her life-long interest in wordplay, Indigo didn't really want to ruminate on this question, because when she blinked herself out of her tangled web of essay-related grievances, _Galaxy of Fantasy_ quest-line plans, and a harmonic analysis of the _beshka_ music she realised her eyes had been trained on someone standing a few feet away and—shit. But of course. She'd been vacantly staring at Kolyat Krios like a caffeine-deficient zombie for God knew how long.

But what was he doing _here?_

Kolyat didn't seem to have noticed Indigo's accidental creepy staring. He looked deep in thought, dark eyes trained on a nearby shop, his arms crossed over his chest. Indigo followed his gaze to the holographic banner scrolling above the entrance. _Alisella's Art Supplies_ , she read, and studied Kolyat's angular profile with interest.

She'd seen him around Zakera Ward on her occasional visits there, spotting him near the transit station as she arrived, or walking past him down a flight of stairs. Once, she'd glimpsed him clearing litter from one of Zakera's many gardens (who the hell chucked their rubbish in a _garden?_ ), which explained the dirt-and-garbage smell that had perplexed her a few weeks ago. She wouldn't be happy clearing up rubbish either, but something about how completely worn-down he'd looked had given her pause. Indigo couldn't quite put her finger on it. Anyway, it was an odd job for a C-Sec intern, but whatever.

The only time the two of them had spoken since Couchgate had been when they'd ended up walking through Kar Yun district's apartment blocks together. Indigo had been on her way to Shayila's for a drinks-vids-and-games-night when she'd spotted him.

Despite looking exhausted, Kolyat had returned her greeting and teasingly asked if she was going there to be part of another "What was it you called it? A 'biotic pissing contest'?"

Indigo had laughed and told him she wasn't planning on it, but you never knew. "You smell remarkably garbage-free today," she'd told him, smirking.

"There's a trash can over there if you miss the smell," he'd replied.

"All right." Indigo had grinned and pretended to shoo him towards it. "Go on, get in."

She didn't quite know what to make of him, but she didn't know quite what to make of anything, really, so there was nothing new there. She'd scratched the surface of him, and she couldn't help but want to scratch a little deeper.

Well, no time like the present.

"Hey," she greeted, stepping closer to him and lifting a hand in a wave. "How are you?"

Kolyat's arms dropped to his sides when he turned to look at her, but Indigo could see that she'd startled him. "What are _you_ doing here?"

Not _quite_ the response she'd hoped for. He hadn't sounded antagonistic, just surprised, but Indigo folded her arms and shifted her weight to a hip. "Hello to you, too," she replied in a tone that could freeze the coffee she'd ordered, her eyebrows climbing to her hairline.

She knew she could just ease off and walk away, but part of her _liked_ butting heads with people. 'Pugnacious child,' her mum had once called her when she was a kid, with that affectionate kind of frustrated tone parents excelled in. Indigo remembered feeling extremely offended and spending ages trying to figure out what exactly was pug-like about her.

Kolyat scratched at one dark-scaled cheek frill, gaze dropping off to the side. "Sorry," he mumbled. He cleared his throat and met her eyes, nictitating membrane flashing pale as he blinked. "I just—I wasn't expecting to see you here."

His perpetual scowl had softened and he sounded genuinely contrite, so Indigo let her icy expression thaw with a gentle smile. "Surely I'm not _that_ scary," she said, unfolding her arms. Kolyat made that weird, amused chuffing sound she'd heard a couple of times, mouth curving into a small smile of his own. "Anyway, I live here."

Kolyat's dark-eyed gaze swept the square, then settled on her face. "You live _here?_ " he pressed, raising a scaly brow.

"Well, _near_ here," Indigo clarified, rolling her eyes. "Not _here_ here." She shot him an impish grin. "Pedant."

A hint of humour played at the curve of Kolyat's mouth, but then it faded and he ducked his head to rub at the back of his neck. "I thought you lived on Zakera," he explained, a sheepish rumble creeping through his words.

"No, I live in a shoebox a few blocks away. Campus apartments." Indigo waved a hand in the vague direction of the apartment blocks. Kolyat's silvery pupils tracked the movement before he glanced at what they could both see of the blocks in question. "You know what they're like," she said, then realised a second later that he probably didn't. "About as far from the lap of luxury as it's possible to get."

Kolyat eyed her. "It can't be that bad."

"Well, no, that was a slight exaggeration." Indigo looked up at the drell and raised her eyebrows, her smile venturing towards smirkdom. "So, seeing as _I_ have a perfect reason to be here, it's _your_ turn to answer the question," she said, punctuating her point with a literal one towards his chest. "What, pray, are _you_ doing here?"

Kolyat blinked both sets of eyelids—a sight Indigo didn't think she'd ever get used to—and fixed her with a rather mulish expression. "Standing," he said, shifting on his feet. "Looking. Breathing."

Ah-ha. _Sarcasm._ They were making progress. Indigo turned her laugh into a huff and quirked a brow, settling her weight on the curve of a hip. "I'm surprised you can manage all three at once," she retorted lightly, taking the sting from her words with a playful smile.

Kolyat echoed her smile with a small, amused one of his own and rubbed the curved bridge of his nose before letting his hand drop back to his side. "I'm here on C-Sec business."

"They sent you all this way for coffee?" Indigo asked, arching a brow. _That_ got a proper laugh from Kolyat, and she grinned. "Yeah, I sort of gathered you were here for C-Sec," she told him. She leaned against a nearby planter box, stretching out her legs and taking care not to bump any flowers with her bag. One tickled her elbow and she crossed her arms below her breasts. "The uniform is a bit of a giveaway, you know."

"You should join Investigations," Kolyat suggested, deadpan. "They need more detectives."

Indigo suppressed a laugh—though she couldn't quite clamp down on her smirk—and nodded, pretending to consider the idea. "I'll be sure to pencil it in for when my teaching career goes down the tubes."

Kolyat tilted his head, blinking at her. "Teaching?"

"Yeah, I'm doing a double degree in music and education. At Auxua. Which is why I live here. _Near_ here," she amended, grinning, when he opened his mouth.

Kolyat's lips quirked into a slight smile. He looked over her head towards the way she'd come, no doubt seeking out the campus. "Are you on your way to class?"

"No, I just had one." Indigo stifled a yawn. She really needed that coffee.

"Was it..." Kolyat trailed off, apparently searching for an appropriate word. "... er, good?"

Cuilam's 'hmm's resounded in Indigo's head with startling clarity and her mouth briefly contorted into a grimace. "It was all right." She twisted her thumb ring. "I didn't get much sleep last night. I stayed up really late last night watching that _Afraid of the Dark_ documentary or whatever it's called. You know, the one about Reapers and Collectors?"

Kolyat nodded. He'd stepped closer to the planter box Indigo had leaned against and was flicking at the leaf of a _demael_ flower with his index finger. "I've seen it."

"Weird stuff, isn't it?" Indigo paused and crossed one ankle over the other. "I've been watching a lot of vids recently. About the Citadel, and stuff. You know, instead of sleeping. So, yeah, I only had like three hours sleep so I couldn't really concentrate. And the lecturer's a salarian, so it doesn't help that he talks like a hamster bathing in espresso."

"He talks _like_ a hamster?" Kolyat repeated, glancing at her while cocking a brow ridge.

Indigo snorted. "Yeah, he just gets up there and squeaks. It's riveting. I should get him one of those wheel things."

Kolyat returned his attention to the flower, mouth twitching. "No wonder you're having trouble."

Indigo made a show of folding her arms and narrowing her eyes. "Ex- _cuse_ me? Who said I was having trouble?"

He glanced sideways at her. "I didn't mean—you just look..." Kolyat trailed off, taking her in from head to toe and back again. "Stressed," he finished, with a final flick at the flower with his index finger.

"Gee, thanks!" Indigo snorted. "You sure know how to charm a girl. Oh, hey, all this talk of academia reminds me—um, you're a drell, right?"

One of the first things Sokil had said to his Introduction to Xenomusicology class was that there were no such things as stupid questions, but Indigo thought he'd make an exception for that one.

Kolyat's brow ridges lowered as he shot her a _look._ "Well spotted."

Indigo rolled her eyes. "Did you live on Kahje?" she asked. "Before you came here? I read a little bit about drell and hanar, and..." She trailed off at the expression on his face, feeling like he'd closed a door in her face.

"Yes, I did," he said. Maybe the door was ajar.

Indigo bit back a twinge of guilt but pressed on. Surely the subject of her essay was relatively harmless, right? "Do you know anything about hanar music?"

He blinked and met her eyes, the hardness in his gaze replaced with surprise and curiosity. "Not really. Why?"

"I'm writing a paper," she explained. "For my xenomusicology class. On hanar music."

"For school?"

"Yes."

He frowned, bemused. "Why ask _me?_ "

Indigo shrugged. "I just thought—"

"Because I'm a drell?"

Indigo didn't back down at his challenging tone. "Well, yes. I would have thought that was pretty obvious." She bit her lip, then fixed him with her most hopeful, nonthreatening smile. "Please? I'll reference you in my essay. You'll be my real, live source."

Kolyat gave the _demael_ flower another flick, his mouth a hard, irritated line. "As opposed to a fake, dead one?"

Indigo's laugh, though genuine, sounded more nervous than she'd like. "Okay, Officer Giggles, I'll just—"

"I'm not an officer."

"Okay, _Mister_ Giggles, then."

Kolyat gave an exasperated, huffing laugh. "Can't you write about…" He flapped a scaly hand towards the elcor musicians in the centre of the square. "…whatever the hell that is?"

Indigo pursed her lips. "They're an elcor _beshka_ ensemble," she told him, annoyed at his inaccuracy. "And I don't want to. I've already chosen hanar."

"Why hanar?"

Indigo blinked. "Why not?" she countered. "They're so different."

Much to Indigo's amusement, both she _and_ Kolyat jumped when a new voice rang out: "Long black!"

"I should go." Kolyat gestured towards the pick-up counter, swiping another of the _demael_ flowers as he did so. Indigo reached out and held the stem between thumb and forefinger to stop it wobbling, her eyes on the tall sweep of Kolyat's back as he went over to get his coffee.

Having interpreted 'I should go' as more or less a goodbye in Kolyat-ese, Indigo expected him to go on his not-so-merry way. He must have noticed the flash of surprise on her face when he re-joined her at the planter box, for he looked at her and said, "What?"

"Nothing," said Indigo. Kolyat raised a brow, so she relented. "I just thought you'd be leaving. Not that I want you to, of course. You can do what you like."

"I didn't say 'I should _go',"_ said Kolyat. "I just meant to get this." He held up the coffee, then took a sip.

"Right, yeah, I get you." Indigo paused, thinking, then decided to drop the subject of hanar. "So, anyway, coffee aside, what kind of 'business'—" she made air quotes with her fingers, and Kolyat's secondary eyelids gave a bemused flutter "—brings a Zakera officer to my neck of the woods?"

The dark scales around Kolyat's eyes tugged as he narrowed them, his brow plates twitching. His face moved in such odd ways, but Indigo was probably just as strange to him. "Your _what?_ "

Definitely just as strange. "It's a human idiom," Indigo told him, smiling. She brushed her fingers through the wispy curls that had fallen free of her plait. "It means my neighbourhood, or vicinity, or what have you."

"Doesn't make any sense," Kolyat remarked, taking another mouthful of coffee.

"Yep, it's pretty senseless. So…?" she prompted. "What kind of 'business' are you on? Or is it classified?"

"I had to make a pick-up."

"Anything interesting?"

"Not really."

"Aw, come on." Indigo pretended to pout. "No red sand caches? Tainted eezo shipments? Blacklisted Fornax issues?"

Kolyat eyed her with mock suspicion over his coffee. "Didn't think you'd be so interested in illegal goods."

Indigo shrugged. "Hey, I'm just a lowly music student. I need _some_ excitement in my life."

"Glad I could help," Kolyat said dryly, with a tiny twitch of his mouth. "I'll let you know if I find anything."

"You know, on second thought, maybe don't. You never know what you'll find on Tayseri. If it doesn't get you high or provide cheap titillation, it'll probably blow your legs off."

"Or it'll do all three," Kolyat chuffed.

"Well, hey, then it's catering to pretty much everyone," Indigo said, laughing. "They really make you travel, though." She wrinkled her nose at the general _they,_ who she assumed also wore C-Sec uniforms. "C-Sec, I mean. Is it like this for all officers? And non-officers?"

The smirk left Kolyat's face as abruptly as it had appeared. He hesitated, shuffling his booted feet a little, and switched his drink from hand to hand. "Sometimes."

"Sounds exhausting."

Kolyat made a non-committal noise in his chest in reply, but Indigo could see the tiredness slumping his shoulders and tracing weary lines over his face. She'd been trying to sympathise, but it looked like she might have made him feel crappy, which in turn made her feel rotten. It came as a relief when the barista called, "Large latte, cream and four sugars, almond croissant?"

Indigo caught the expression of distaste flitting over Kolyat's alien face and stopped in her tracks on her way to retrieve her sweet, sweet liquid metaphor. "What?"

 _"Four_ sugars?" he repeated, looking for all the world like she'd ordered a steaming cup of varren shit with added pyjak guts for flavouring.

"I'm a hedonist," Indigo said. She shot him a grin over her shoulder as she went to the counter. "And a wimp."

The coffee was just how she liked it: strong enough to wake someone from a coma, enough sugar to give her diabetes just from looking at it, and an entire cow's worth of cream. At least, she hoped it came from a cow—no amount of self-goading would make her adventurous enough to brave McSorley's Cloaca Margarine ("Made from free-range organic varren!" boasted the packaging at the local supermarket).

Not wanting Kolyat to see her impression of a hungry varren, Indigo tucked her croissant into her bag for later devouring, hoping it wouldn't get squished between her academic datapads and her heavy folder of sheet music. She sidled back over to Kolyat, all too aware of his eyes on her and his irritatingly inscrutable expression. She tapped a forefinger against the side of her cup and looked over at Alisella's. "So, I noticed you've been eyeing up the art shop. You buying some… er, stuff?" She suppressed a cringe. Another exception to Sokil's rule.

To his credit, Kolyat appeared to give her words their due. After a moment's tense thought, he made a low, uncomfortable sound, his eyes fixed on the plastic lid on his drink. "I don't know."

"You never did tell me how your painting went," Indigo remarked, trying to find her footing in their conversation once more.

"It _didn't,"_ Kolyat muttered.

"Didn't what? Didn't 'went'?"

"Yeah." His face stiffened for a moment in an expression Indigo recognised all too well: disappointment. "I tried, but…"

"Well, considering a turian nearly put his foot through the canvas, I'm not all that surprised. Plus, it was kind of stupidly big. The canvas, not the turian's foot."

"It wasn't _stupidly_ big."

Indigo scrunched her nose. "It sort of was."

Kolyat shot her a glare, then looked down, scuffing a heel against the hard alloyed floor in an oddly boyish gesture of restlessness. He huffed out a deep, rasping sigh, the broad line of his shoulders slumping. "I shouldn't have… it's stupid. The whole thing is stupid."

"It's not stupid," Indigo said, and his expression softened. "Maybe you could try something else. Have you ever tried sculpting?"

Kolyat looked at her. He seemed surprised by her interest, but also at a loss for what to do with it. At least he wasn't scowling any more. "Sculp... no."

"Well, do you want to go in and see what you find?" Indigo asked, gesturing to the art supply shop. "You've only been staring at it for the past five minutes."

"I wasn't _staring._ I was _looking."_ The side of Kolyat's mouth quirked up, his eyes not leaving hers. "It's... a whole different vibe."

The words pricked at Indigo's memory and she narrowed her eyes, but all she said was, "Er, do you mind if I tag along? If you do go in, that is?" She wasn't procrastinating at all. Not one bit.

Kolyat blinked all four of his eyelids, but said, "If you want."

"Thanks. I did art in high school, so, you know, I'm pretty much an expert. Granted, I did end up dropping out when I was 17, but I'd like to think it counts for something."

Kolyat's eyes flicked up to meet hers, double eyelids blinking in quick succession. "You left?" He looked her up and down and she raised her eyebrows. "But you seem… studious."

"Er, usually I am," Indigo said, though the two-thousand unwritten words and only slightly above average grades protested otherwise. She tucked a loose curl behind one ear and frowned in thought. "I just… That whole year was a bit of a mess for me, so school kind of took a back seat."

"What happened?"

Indigo didn't look at Kolyat, but she could feel his eyes on her. She picked at her nail polish, already regretting opening up this particular can of worms. "Er, my grandfather got really sick. And died." Even four years after he'd passed, thinking of her grandfather still hurt. "And, I mean, everyone's grandparents die, so it's not like it's anything out of the ordinary, but he and I were really close. I didn't deal very well, and I was stressed anyway with all the exams and assessments, so it all kind of threw me a little."

"Sorry." His voice was soft.

She finally looked up from her chipped nails to see him studying her and gave a small smile. "Thanks. So, yeah, I tried to go back to school once I had my head on straight, but it wasn't working and eventually I just decided to leave." It had been a hard decision, but one she'd stood by.

"So... you came here," Kolyat said.

"That I did," said Indigo. She left her nails alone and looked over across the square where the elcor were still performing. "It's pretty overwhelming."

"You'll get used to it."

The platitude sounded clumsy, but Indigo felt reassured just the same. Her lips twitched into a thin smile. "That's what I've been telling myself since I got here. It's taking a while."

Kolyat nodded, then looked at her, hesitating. "You lived on Earth?"

"Yeah, with my parents. They're still there. I'm the first in our family to live off-world."

"And you came here for school."

"I guess. To study, and to just… you know, be part of the galaxy, I guess." Indigo shrugged.

Kolyat chuffed. "How's that going?"

"Er, it's a work in progress. What about you? Have you been off-world before?"

"No."

"What made you decide to leave?" She didn't know anything about what he did other than his internship. Maybe he'd left for much the same reason as she: to learn, to _explore._ He certainly struck her as the restless type, if rather self-contained.

It was then that something _weird_ happened. Kolyat's already large eyes widened and his focus seemed to… not slip or blur, but _sharpen_ onto something past her and past the ever-present chatter of the wards. It only lasted for a moment, and when he blinked and glanced at her his gaze was clear again, if a bit sheepish. "It's… I wanted…"

"Wanted to get out?" Indigo guessed. What had all _that_ been about? Mountain, molehill.

He nodded, but she got the feeling he wasn't telling the full story. "It's a big galaxy," he mumbled, and drained his coffee.

"Indeed," Indigo agreed. She wasn't satisfied with her answer, but that was an utterly selfish way of looking at their conversation and besides, she didn't want to prod him further. At least, not for another five or ten minutes. He wasn't a walking mystery; he was a _person._ He didn't owe her anything, and that was fine. Still, she couldn't help but want to pry open his skull and pilfer through his brain, to figure out what made him tick.

A short silence fell while Indigo juggled these anxieties back and forth in her head, broken when Kolyat mumbled something indistinct and gestured towards a nearby bin with his empty cup. Indigo looked up at the back of his head as he went over to it and shot him a playful smile he couldn't see. "I don't miss the rubbish smell all _that_ much."

Kolyat glanced over his shoulder at her, his lips twitching.

Indigo bolstered her resolve to take the lead with another mouthful of coffee and gestured to the art supply shop when he returned. "Well, shall we go in?"

She had seen Kolyat Krios striding through the constant bustle of Zakera Ward's crowds, unimpeded by the chatter of voices and the glare of neon. So when she realised he was… well, lagging, she paused for a beat before shrugging her confusion off. Sure, she herself had always been a fast walker, especially through crowds, but he had longer legs, not to mention he'd been the one to kick this off in the first place.

Was he really this anxious about buying paint?

As Indigo led him to the art shop, a part of her mired in snobbery brought up an unpleasant notion: what if he was a shitty artist? What if his paintings were the visual equivalent of someone playing a medley of _Fleet and Flotilla's_ sing-along mode on the recorder?

No, that shouldn't matter. It _didn't_ matter. Even if he drew the shittiest stick figures in the galaxy he was still learning, still looking to further himself, and was Indigo not on the Citadel to do exactly the same thing?

The dry, woody smell of paper and clay greeted them as they stepped inside, as did the stiffened posture and startled expression of the asari at the counter—Alisella, presumably—when she saw Kolyat. Or, more accurately, saw his uniform.

"Is there a problem, officer?" she asked hesitantly, her expression one of trepidation. Tayseri paranoia at work, Indigo mused.

Kolyat's lips parted, but Indigo heard only an anxious rumble reverberating through his chest that Indigo hoped for his sake only the two of them could hear.

"We're just looking," she interjected, flashing a smile at the asari. "Shopping, I mean. Looking to shop."

"I see. Let me know if you need anything." The asari's posture relaxed only a little as her gaze slid from Kolyat to Indigo. She gave a quick, tight smile before heading back behind the counter.

If Kolyat seemed uneasy before, it was nothing compared to the discomfort he displayed now. He didn't say anything, but his shoulders tightened as his sharp gaze took in shelves of paint, canvases, and various craft supplies. He kept glancing at the door, so Indigo said, "Oh, hey, look. Paint!" and scooted over to a nearby shelf.

"What a surprise," Kolyat muttered from behind her, still lingering by the entrance. Indigo rolled her eyes but fought a smile when she heard his footsteps following hers.

Hovering over him would only exacerbate his anxiety so Indigo stepped away to have a look at some books on a nearby display. A stray curl caught against her eyelashes and tickled her nose and she began to undo her braid. The back of her neck tingled and she looked over her shoulder to see Kolyat staring at her hair.

The corners of her mouth twitched up. "What?"

"Nothing," he mumbled, looking back at the tubes of paint. He was blushing.

Indigo's smile didn't fade but she didn't press him further. She supposed hair—especially hair as curly and bright as hers—would be pretty weird to aliens. Still smiling, she sidled up beside him and poked at two paint bottles. "I like how there's 'marine blue', and then there's _'ultra_ marine blue'. Like they made the marine blue and thought, 'Hey, this could be more mariney. Let's make it marine-ier.'"

Kolyat eyed her with that familiar frown. "Nothing you say makes any sense."

"I know," Indigo admitted, her smile turning wry. "Is it bad that I kind of like it that way?"

Kolyat chuffed and picked up the ultramarine blue. He studied it for a second before putting it back.

Indigo teased the edge of the plastic lid of her half-finished coffee with a fingernail. "So, er, do you want to look at the clay? For sculpting? You can get air-drying stuff or stuff you cook. It's a lot of fun."

"Why don't you do it, then?" he asked with a hint of accusation colouring the timbre of his voice.

"I don't have the patience. I'll just live vicariously through you."

Another chuff. "Good luck with that."

She watched as Kolyat brushed a finger against a tube of paint before letting his hand fall back to his side. "Have you always been arty?"

His lips pressed together, sending sharp bites of tension along the line of his jaw. "Since I was a child."

"Did you ever do classes or anything?"

"No."

"Why?"

"My aunt didn't want—" Kolyat cut himself off, closing his eyes for a moment. "I did other things," he amended, scratching at a cheek frill. "I taught myself a bit."

The implications of his words—not to mention his shuttered expression—piqued Indigo's curiosity but she reined it in. "Well, it's good that you're getting into it," she said mildly, easing a thick paintbrush from a holder. She looked up at him with a smile. "I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with."

"Yeah," he said, but he sounded distracted. Indigo bit her lip and frowned, but she kept quiet for the moment and watched his downcast expression. He looked up from his boots to her face and rubbed at the back of his neck. "What… um, what about you?"

"Oh, no, I was never serious about it. I mean, I did the whole finger painting thing as a kid but the only thing I ever really worked at was music."

Kolyat picked up the brush she'd fiddled with and put it back barely a moment later. "That thing you carry around… that's an instrument?"

"A trombone. It's like a… er, I don't know any drell instruments to compare it to. You sort of make farty noises into it to make sound. Not the most romantic of instruments. But I also play cello. And piano. And saxophone, mandolin, flute, and… er, tubular bells. Which my grandmother always called tubercular balls."

Kolyat snorted, taken off-guard. "You really play all that?" he asked in a tone that told her he'd already called her bullshit.

"No, just trombone." Indigo glanced down at her hands. Long-fingered and bony, just like her grandfather's hands. She remembered sitting with him at his piano when she was little, learning the notes. "I did play cello, but not for years now. My dad plays guitar and viola. I think it really annoyed him when I started playing brass instead of strings." She grinned, then wondered if all this music talk was going over Kolyat's finned head.

Kolyat blinked, looking slightly confused. "But he let you do it anyway."

"Of course." Indigo frowned as she drank some more of her coffee, but her own bemusement eased when she remembered what he'd said about his aunt. Maybe she'd taken a lot for granted. "So, er, anyway… clay." She rubbed at her forehead with her free hand before refocussing her attention on the clay. "So, this one is air-drying," she said, pointing, "so you can make something and just leave it, and then this one you have to cook. In a kiln. Or in an oven."

Kolyat picked up the second block, testing the weight of it in his hand. "Is this what you did at school?"

"God, no. I did ink drawings. Lots of pretentious abstract surreal bullshit. I mean, I tried the clay thing, but everything either went 'flop' or, er, 'boom'."

Kolyat's eyes widened as he looked at the clay like he expected it to blow up right there and then. "It can explode?"

He sounded so alarmed that Indigo had to laugh. "Only if you don't cook it right. Tell you what, if anything _does_ explode, blame me for any collateral damage."

Kolyat chuffed. "I'll send you the bill."

Despite Indigo's less-than-ideal salesmanship, ten minutes later Kolyat paid for a block of air-drying clay and some basic tools. Indigo had seen sculpting tools that used tiny mass effect fields for more intricate work, but Kolyat hadn't gone for those. Either they were too expensive or he preferred a more traditional approach.

"All right, well, I should probably vamoose," said Indigo. The plates of Kolyat's brow twitched in confusion—whether in regards to the word 'vamoose' or in regards to _her,_ she wasn't sure. She gave a warm smile and nodded at him. "It was nice talking to you," she added, because it had been... albeit in a weird, confusing, awkward sort of way. She hoped that, at least, was a two-way street.

Kolyat met her eyes, then glanced away. "Yeah," he mumbled. "I'll see you." He scratched at the ridge of scales above one cheek frill. "And… thanks," he added, dragging his gaze back to hers with a small smile she'd almost call _shy_.

Good enough. Indigo returned his hesitant smile with a wider one of her own. "Delighted to have been of assista—"

A deep, bassy, _whumph-crack_ thundered through the room, the items rattling on their shelves in time like chattering teeth. Indigo jumped, her coffee sliding from slack fingers as the wave of sound and force slammed into her. Beside her, Kolyat startled as well, his bag of supplies dropping to the floor with a heavy _thump_ that resounded in the shocked silence that swept the shop. Indigo bent to pick up her coffee—by some miracle, the lid had stayed on—she couldn't tear her eyes away from the thick plume of grey smoke she could see out the window. It darkened the sky from only a few blocks away where just seconds ago a bright bloom of fire had swelled into the artificial atmosphere.

"Gah!" Alisella gasped. "Goddess fucking—what the hell was that?"

The answer—or lack thereof—came in the form of muttered curses in both human and drell as Indigo and Kolyat knocked heads. She'd straightened up, coffee in hand, just as he'd bent to retrieve his clay and tools. Indigo spent a second interpreting the crackling hum she heard as a sign of possible inner ear damage until the lights flickered and died, plunging the shop into darkness.

Blinking, she rubbed her temple where it had collided with Kolyat's chin and considered telling him he could weaponise that thing. Her pulse thundered in her ears over the cacophony of car alarms and anxious chatter pressing in from outside. She swallowed the tendril of nerves that slithered from her stomach to her throat. "When I said 'de-lighted', I didn't mean it like _that."_


End file.
